The curse of gold

“Our child came toward us, pale and cold, as if drifted to her mother’s bosom by the storm. Her trembling arms were held out pleadingly, her eyes seemed full of frozen tears. She shivered from head to foot, and her teeth chattered, partly with cold, partly with anguish. She fell forward upon her mother’s bosom, moaning; but no words came with the desolate sound.

“The mother grew strong now—that frail, little woman yonder—and would not let me help her, as she staggered back to the room, carrying her child forward also.

“‘Give me fire,’ she said, looking at the black hearth. ‘Is this the welcome we offer our child?’

“I knelt down upon my hands and knees, thanking God for the return of that poor girl; while I raked the embers together, and blew them into life with my lips. I heaped dry wood upon the coals, and when the flame leaped through, lighting the features of my child, I turned to look upon her, where she lay upon the mother’s bosom.

“Her eyes were wide open, and a dusky rim that swept under gave intensity to the blackness. When she saw me looking at her, those poor lips, all blue and cold, began to quiver, and a gush of tears changed the stony grief in her whole face to a look of such mournful tenderness, that I too burst into tears.

“‘Father!’ she cried, reaching forth her two hands as she had done when a little child,—‘father!’

“I stretched out my arms, and strove to draw her downward to the bosom that yearned to hold her; but the mother put me back, with a wave of the hand, and folding Elsie close to her heart, cried out pleadingly,—

“‘Not yet, oh! not yet. Let her be, or my heart will break.’

“She had the best right to her, so I buried my face in Elsie’s mantle, and felt comforted by something she had touched.

“I tell you, child, no human heart dreams how much it can love, till sorrow falls on the object it clings to. That child was sacred to us as an angel then—dearer, a thousand times dearer, because they had attempted to crush her with disgrace. Her pale cheek, her tremulous lips, all the traces of wrong and anguish upon her person, were claims upon our tenderness. There was a sort of worship in our grief and in our joy.

“The fire burned up clear and brightly, but as the chill left her poor frame, a sharper consciousness of her position seemed to sting her into restlessness. She clung first to her mother, then to me; twice she bent to kiss me, and then drew back with a look of shrinking terror.

“‘You know, father; or must I tell you?’ she said at last.

“I tried to smile and make light of the things we had heard, by looks rather than speech, and all the time she was perusing my soul with her wild eyes.

“‘You did not believe it,’ she cried, with a hysterical laugh, ‘I knew it—I was sure of it. But, father, mother, he has turned me out-of-doors.’

“‘My child,’ cried the mother, giving way to tenderness. ‘But you are home, you are with us, your own mother, your dear old father.’

“‘I know,’ said Elsie, ‘I thought of that when they turned me out-of-doors. I will return, said I, to my father’s house, a prodigal, but without his sin. Father, believe that; you surely believe that, mother.’

“‘My child, my own child,’ answered the mother.

“‘I know that you believe me,’ she said, and a faint smile stole across her lip.

“The mother caressed her, smoothing back the black hair from her temples, as if she had been a child.

“‘Tell us, daughter, tell us all,’ she whispered, tenderly.

“Elsie started up. Fire sparkled through the tears in her eyes. But quickly as it had kindled, the angry light went out; and sinking to her mother’s bosom, she answered, amid her sobs,—

“‘Mother, they have denounced me, they have covered me with scorn.’

“‘They—my child! Of whom are you speaking?’

“‘Of him—my husband—of De Marke and the French woman, who has poisoned his heart against me. Oh! mother, if she had never entered this house—if she never had.’

“‘But your child, our grandson?’ I inquired, after she had grown calmer.

“Elsie shook her head wearily. ‘I asked for him, father. I begged on my knees that they would give me my child. I prayed, I wept, I went mad before them; but it was all of no use. My boy—my boy!’

“She broke off moaning, and began to rock herself to and fro, calling out, in tones of piteous tenderness, ‘My boy—my boy!’

“Thus we got the history of her wrongs, in snatches, among tears and tender wailings over the happiness torn from her.

“It was true, De Marke had turned her from his door; and the Frenchwoman, her accuser, remained behind. When the sunrise sent its gleams of gold aslant the snowdrifts around us, we had gathered all the facts that she could relate. That French fiend, by cunning and falsehood, had separated my daughter from her husband. Elsie had come back to us, branded and denounced, but innocent as the angels.

“I sought De Marke, in order to defend my child; but he would not receive me. I wrote to him, he sent my letters back unanswered. But Elsie would not believe him in earnest. She, poor child, still had her dreams and her delusions. They were wearing her to a shadow; but she could not give them up.

‘The child,’ she would plead, ‘surely he will give back my child.’

“Thus, day after day, she lived and hoped on.

“But the end came at last. De Marke entered proceedings for a divorce. I employed counsel. I spent half my substance in defending the honor of my child. But it was all in vain. The divorce was granted, and our daughter branded forever—forever separated from her husband and child. Now listen. That Frenchwoman was the principal witness against Elsie, and in six months De Marke married her. It was this news which drove our daughter wholly mad.”

The old man ceased. The perspiration stood in drops on his forehead. This renewal of sorrow had exhausted him.

Catharine looked at him sadly.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I have given you pain. But for this knowledge, I too must have gone mad! One word more. This Frenchwoman? Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” answered the old man, “was the woman, you remember her. See how sin levels down the soul. Tell me, is not the fate of my child preferable to that?”

“I know this woman!” said Catharine, gently; “she is indeed punished through the degradation of her own nature. But the son? Did Elsie never see her son?”

“Poor Elsie! She would not have known him. For many years we were compelled to keep her in the asylum, from whence she was removed to the care of Mrs. Barr. I believe that De Marke thought her dead, for until the day that miserable woman appeared at the library window, we never saw either of them.”

“And you have never seen her son?”

“He has never inquired after his mother—nor attempted to open any communication with us. He may even be dead.”

“Is it not possible that he may have been brought up in ignorance of these facts? I almost think so,” said Catharine.

“I do not know—and poor Elsie, what good would it be to her? She has forgotten everything.”

As he spoke, the old man arose, and walked into an inner room, closing the door after him. Catharine looked around, and saw that Mrs. Ford had disappeared also; indeed, the dear old lady had stolen away in the early part of this conversation, overcome by the mournful reminiscences it brought upon her.

When she found herself quite alone, Catharine gave way to a storm of feeling that shook her to the soul. She walked up and down the room, murmuring to herself, linking and unlinking her fingers, brushing back the hair from her hot temples, and tossing her arms upward, as if the room were too small for such emotions. She seemed, for the time, almost as wild as her charge. While in this state of excitement, she saw Elsie moving across the lawn, and struck by a sudden glow of affection, ran out to meet her.

“Mother! mother, his mother,” she cried, throwing herself on Elsie’s bosom. “His mother, his mother, and mine. Oh, thank God, thank God, that he sent me here!”

Elsie looked down upon that glowing face, with a sweet, vacant smile, and began to sing a lullaby, such as had sent her lost infant to sleep.

With a heavy sigh, Catharine arose from that unconscious bosom, and wandered away down to the sea-shore, where she could think and resolve in solitude.