ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL.
"How full of briars is this working day world."
Athalia wore not unwomanly rags at the period when I shall commence her history. She was clad in the garb of a country girl, just arrived in the city, in the full expectation that fortune awaited her, just as soon as she could learn the trade of a dress-maker. Oh, how she worked, and laughed, and sung! She was the life of the shop. Sometimes she thought of home—home where mother was—and then she wept. But the sunshine of youth soon sends the clouds and dew drops that dim the eye away to forgetfulness.
Athalia was sixteen—sweet sixteen in face and mind. What a bright blue eye, what soft brown hair, what wit, and oh, what a voice in song! and such a heart, 'twas tuned for others' woes, and not her own.
Why comes this mountain flower from her country home?
Her father was a farmer—ah! was—would be still, only that he had swallowed his farm. The mortgage to the store at the cross roads, the damage paid in a law suit for a fight, and the cost of throwing his neighbor's horse down his well, had left him without a home for himself, and so his children went forth into the world to seek bread; the daughter, of course, by the needle, the sons at sea.
Athalia chose the city. How little she knew the danger. She would have shuddered to see a man sit carelessly down upon a powder keg with a pipe in his mouth. Not half so dangerous is that, as for a young country girl, with a beautiful face, to come here.
Oh, how she worked one whole year to learn her dress-maker's trade, without one cent of compensation. Such is the law. The law of custom with milliners' apprentices.
Then she went home. How joyfully her mother opened her arms; how sweet was that kiss—a loved mother's kiss. Did she love her father? How could she love a man who often cursed, and sometimes beat that mother? She went home to stay, to ply her new trade among her old neighbors. How could she love her father when he would not let her stay, and, like a drunken brute as he was, drove her back again to the city?
"You have learnt a city trade, and you have got city airs; nobody wants you here."
It was not so. Everybody wanted her there but her miserable father. Everybody else loved Athalia. They saw no city airs; all they saw was that a rough diamond had been polished. What is it worth without?
So she came back to the city with a heavy heart. What was she to do? She could go back to her old shop and work eighteen hours a day, for twenty-five cents, and scanty food; lodging, as she had done during her long year of apprenticeship, three in a narrow bed, in a room with just air and space enough for the decent accommodation of a cat, nothing more. What hope in such a life? What would she have at the end of the year? Just what she had at the beginning? No; for one year of youth would be gone.
She could not go back; there was no hope there. So, with another girl just as poor, but just as willing to work, she took a room, and took in work, or went out to do it. Then how she was exposed, how in danger. Libertines live in genteel families. Ah, and are pet sons of mothers who would give dollars to dissipated rakes, and grudge shillings to poor dress-makers. And if the poor girl should be caught in the snare of such a son, how the mother would rave and drive her away unpaid, because she had disgraced her "respectable boy."
Mrs. Morgan was one of Athalia's lady "patrons." Haughtily proud, yet not, like some of her class, positively dishonest, cruelly dishonest. She wanted the labor of the poor sewing girl, because she possessed great taste, and could dress her daughters better, and what was still more, though so little practised by the rich, cheaper, than she could get their dresses at a "regular establishment." That was just what the daughters most disliked. They knew that none of their acquaintances wore such neat-fitting dresses, but when the question was put, "Where did you get them made?" they could not answer, "Oh, we always get everything at Madame Chalambeau's fashionable establishment in Broadway."
They could not change their mother's policy, and so they determined to drive poor Athalia out of the house.
They had another object. Athalia was beautiful. Her face was such as we are apt to conceive that an angel must have. And everybody who came in the house while she was there, and saw her, said, "Oh, what a sweet face!"
This was gall and wormwood to the "young ladies," for their faces were just such as you would suppose were made out of those two ingredients, and they were true indications of their minds. So they hated the poor seamstress for double cause.
At first she came to the table with the family. But the girls could not help observing that she was the diamond, they the setting, to all eyes. She was better bred than they, with all their boarding-school education. Where had she got it? In a country school house, and her mother's kitchen.
Once, once only, after tea she was invited to sing. Who supposed that she could touch a piano note. She accepted the invitation, as all well-bred girls do, who know that they can sing, and Walter offered his arm to lead her to the piano.
Walter was the brother, the only "son and heir of our family." He had just returned from a lady-killing Niagara tour, and met Athalia for the first time at the tea table. It was the last time, the sisters said, that he should meet her there. She went home that evening; she had finished her job and received her poor pay. That was one of Mrs. Morgan's virtues; she paid the stipulated price to those who worked for her.
What daggers, scorpions' stings, and poisoned darts, poor Athalia and Walter would have felt, while he stood over her at the piano, if they could have felt the glances of scornful, angry eyes. How he was taken to task afterwards for paying attention to "a sewing girl," particularly for waiting upon her home.
How he justified himself. Just as though there was need of it. But aristocracy had stept down to the level of one who
Walter justified, apologised, for he was bound in the iron fetters, "polite custom."
"I found," says he, "when I came home, a beautiful, well-dressed, well-behaved girl, to all appearance a young lady, at your tea table."
"Well, she shall never come there again. I always told mother that she might know better than to bring her to the table; and the pert minx, if she knew her place, would never try to stick herself into genteel company. So much for having a dress-maker in the house."
"Elsie, Elsie, I am ashamed of you."
"I think you had better be ashamed of yourself, mother."
"I found her," resumed Walter, "at your table, and I took the only vacant seat, by her side. I did not find her pert, but on the contrary, I must say it, better behaved, better spoken, than my sister Elsie, when speaking of or to her mother."
"You had better insult me, by your comparison, Sir Walter."
"No; I do not intend that. But I was only explaining why I paid attention to the lady."
"The lady—lady! That to a sewing girl who goes out to work by day's work. Did you learn that at college or at Saratoga?"
"I have learned to call every female lady, who looks, acts, and talks like one. I hope my sister Elsie will not unlearn me. I found the lady at your table. I found her polite and diffident. She is not a forward minx. I walked with her to the parlor."
"Yes, and she should have known better than to go there. Why did she not go back to her work?"
"Elsie, she had done her work, and was waiting for your father to come home, so I could get some money to pay her; for I should be ashamed to keep her out of her money, or oblige her to call again. You had spent all the change I had in the house in your afternoon shopping. It was me that asked her to stay. It was me that asked her into the parlor. It was me, your mother, that asked her to sing one of those plaintive, sweet songs, I had heard her sing to the children while at work. It was you that urged her. What for? That she might fail. Elsie, Elsie, there is envy in your heart."
"And she did sing. Was ever anything sweeter? I can repeat every word, for every note went down into my soul, and printed itself like the magnetic telegraph. Listen:
"Smitten—smitten—my brother Walter smitten with my dress-maker! Faugh! I wonder if he went home with her, for he went out at the same time?"
Yes, he did go home with her. It was her first false step. But ye that stand fast, do not censure this first step of her fall. She was young and handsome; so was he. Theirs were such hearts as nature sports with. Both were touched. He went home with her. They got into a stage at Seventeenth street to ride to Broome, for there was the home of the sewing girl. At Broome street he forgot to pull the check string. She did not notice it till the crowd of cars, carriages, and swarms of human beings, which fill up that great wide thoroughfare, Canal street, awakened her, from her reverie of wild thoughts, to the fact that they were already too far down. Before he could stop her she had pulled the string, and the driver held up and looked down through his little peep hole at his passengers, ready for his sixpenny fare, which he will contrive to make seven cents, if he makes change for you.
Walter acknowledged that he did not mean to stop the stage; he wanted Athalia to go to Taylor's, and take an ice cream with him. But she was inexorable. He plead, she said, no; she said it sweetly, and, finally, they compromised by her agreeing to go to-morrow evening.
The second false step!
Then he walked home with her. She said, good night, at the door, he said, "Oh, let me see you up these dim stairs."
"Oh, no, I am used to them, I can find my room in the dark. If Jeannette is at home, she will hear a little signal upon the wall, and open the door, then it will be light."
"Give it then."
She did; Jeannette was not at home.
"Oh, let me go up, and just look in, and see where angels live."
Oh, flattery! thy power is great. Why should she refuse, since he was to come again, she had promised that? So she said, "come up, then," and away she tripped into the darkness, her step so light that he could not tell where it fell. Directly there was a little scratch, a flash, a blue flame, very small, and then a full white light, and a match, and then a lamp was burning.
"Come up. Take care of the narrow, crooked steps, they are not like your broad easy stair-case."
She had made another false step. Did far off visions of fancy revel in her brain, that she might some day go up that broad stair-case, arm in arm with that handsome young man? What if they did? you too have dreamed more unlikely day dreams.
"Come up, can you see?"
Yes, he could see,
just up there above him, one of the houris he had often read of, often dreamed of, never before seen. He went up, to her little heaven of a room. How could she sing that,
while everything looked so smiling in her mart? How could she long for the sweet seclusion of her country home, with such a bijou of a hermit's cell here? He stood amazed. He spoke not, but he thought. Did she divine his thoughts?—she answered them—how did she know them? The magnetic telegraph of the soul was at work.
"Yes, sir, we are obliged to keep our room neat, because ladies come here to get work done, and they would not give us their custom if we lived in a plain room."
Plain room! What would his sisters say to a plainly furnished room, if that was not one?
"True, it is plainer than theirs—I mean—but you did not speak—I thought you spoke—yes it is plain compared with rooms that ladies occupy. We pay enough though for the furniture to have good."
"Do you hire it then?"
"Yes, we neither of us had money enough to furnish a room, only a few things, and pay the rent in advance. So we hired a furniture man to put in the things, and we pay him for the use of them."
"How much?"
"Five dollars a month."
"Five dollars! Why there is not over a hundred dollars worth."
"No, sir; that is just what it was counted at. They are all second-hand articles. There is the bedstead; we furnished the bed and bedding; my mother gave me that; Jeannette has no mother; and the table, and the other little pine table, the bureau, the wash-stand, the six chairs, the rocker, and the sofa; we made those ottomans, and the curtains; and in that pantry——. Oh, I declare how I am running on."
"Pray, tell me, Miss——, I really have not learned your name yet."
"Athalia. I am sure you heard your mother call me that."
"Yes, but I was going to call you by your sirname."
"Lovetree, sir. Athalia Lovetree."
"Oh, that is a very sweet, pretty name."
"Yes, sir, so much so that I think I shall always keep it."
"So all the young ladies say. But it hardly ever proves true with one who owns so pretty a name, and a face prettier still."
More flattery. She did not hear it. No. She felt it though.
"Well, I am very sure I never shall change my first name. I never shall be called by any other than Athalia."
She thought so then; I wonder if she ever thought of it in after years?
"But you have not told me what is in that pantry."
"Oh, no matter; that is where we keep all our dishes and cooking utensils. We have a stove in winter; in summer, a little charcoal furnace behind the fire-board."
"And is your room warm in winter?"
"Why yes, sir, if we have plenty of work."
"Does work keep you warm?"
"Oh, no; but work gives us money to buy coal. There was a time last winter, when we were out of work, that——"
"You had no fire?"
"Yes, sir, but only a few days, we had to make up the month's rent, eight dollars for the room, and five for the furniture."
Walter put his hand in his pocket. What for? He felt how easy it would be to take out a hundred dollars, and tell her, to go and pay for that furniture, and not pay rent for it any longer. Then he thought how ridiculous, to be so affected by the woes and wants of a sewing girl. How his proud sisters would laugh at him. Pride conquered a heart prone to a good action.
"And so you went without fire, to pay that usurious old miser who owns this furniture, sixty per cent per annum, for the use of it. Sixty, yes, more than a hundred upon what it would sell for at auction. And what did you do for food in the meantime?"
"Well, we did not need much, and should not have suffered any, if Mrs. Jenkins had paid me for my work. Oh, if she only knew how much we did need it. Jeannette was sick, and what little money I had, I spent for her; I had almost ten dollars due me for work, and could not get one. It is wicked to keep poor girls out of their money; indeed it is, when they are sick and suffering for it."
"And you suffered, while Mrs. Jenkins, with her thirteen servants, and coach and horses owed you for work?"
"Well, we did not suffer much, except I had to pawn my black silk dress, the very one too that I needed most when it was cold, and had to do without fire when Jeannette was sick, and should, by all means, have had one. She is a sweet, good girl; I wish she was at home."
"Wish again, and you will see her."
Both started as though caught in something they were ashamed of. Why should they be? True he had approached very close to Athalia, as she stood watering her flowers and feeding her bird—both windows were full of flowers, and over each a canary bird; and he was watching all her operations with as much interest as though they were all his own.
"Poor things," she said, "they look neglected."
She loved flowers. So did he. He loved their owner, but he had not said so yet. He hardly knew it; he would not let any one know it; hence he started when Jeannette spoke, for he thought she must have seen it. He blushed and turned round, and then she blushed; there was a trio of blushes. What for? Jeannette did not think it was a stranger. She thought it was Charley Vail. Charley was a sort of beau, yet not a beau. He was Jeannette's cousin; and though he did not love her exactly, he liked her, and I guess that she liked him; Athalia thought more than liked him. Charley would have loved Athalia if she had given him the least encouragement, but she would not, for she hoped he would love his cousin and marry her. He was a good fellow, always ready to do anything on earth for "the girls"—in short he was Charley.
Jeannette blushed. She had reason to, for, thinking it was cousin Charley—who else could it be, there in their room alone with Athalia, in the evening—she tripped up behind him and gave him a good hearty slap on the back. He turned around, she almost felt him hugging and kissing her, but he did not. She looked again, the light now shone in his face, and there she stood before a stranger. Is it any wonder she blushed? is it any wonder he blushed? is it any wonder they all blushed? She played with her bonnet strings; he twirled his hat; Athalia could not play with any thing. She had the lamp in one hand, and the bird cage in the other. But she could laugh, and she burst out in such clear, musical tones, as she said, "Why, Jeannette, did you think it was Charley?"
That explained the whole. He understood the blow now. Did he also understand what Charley would have done, if it had been him that got the blow. Perhaps he thought, for he said, "You have struck me, miss. I never take a blow without giving one back. There."
Did he strike her? What! strike a woman! Shame! Oh, no; but he caught her in his arms, before she could be aware of the movement, and such a kiss! such, a good, hearty kiss as he gave her. Ah, well! who would not? She was a nice, sweet girl, not quite so pretty as Athalia, but one that a colder heart than his might relish in just such a case. She pouted a little, and talked about great liberty in a stranger; but who took the first liberty? True; but "that was a mistake."
"Then count the other a mistake too."
"No, that was done on purpose."
"So it was, and I should like to do it again, but I will not, so rudely. Pray forgive me."
What had she to forgive? what to be angry about. How could she hold out against that, "I should like to do it again?"
After all she was not half so angry as Athalia. And what was she angry about? That he had kissed Jeannette instead of her? Take care, little heart, jealousy is creeping in among thy pulsations. Take care, big heart, for just now Charley enters the scene, and before he has observed that a stranger is in the room, he has kissed Athalia.
Mischief has broke loose to-night. What is in the men? What is in Walter Morgan, that a kiss given to that girl, for the first time seen that night, should send a pang to his heart? How it goes throbbing through every nerve, and pricks into the very core of sensation. Take care, big heart and little heart, nature is at her sports and she always makes pleasures sweet by contrast with pain.
Finally, all are reconciled. How they do laugh over the queer mistakes. Jeannette would have sooner struck a bear than him, yet he did not bite her. Charley would have sooner kissed that same bear, and risked the hug, than have kissed Athalia before a stranger, for he is a good boy, a little mischievous, but would never do a thing to hurt the feelings of another, particularly a woman.
How they did sit, and talk, and laugh, and enjoy happiness, such as Walter had never found in rose-wood furnished parlors. What would his proud sisters say, if they knew how "low he had sunk himself, to keep company with sewing girls?" But he would not tell them. Take care, young man, you are breaking in upon the conventionalities of life. You must stick to your caste, in America as well as India. You may lay your heart at the feet of anything that is old and ugly, even as your sisters, so that she is ton and of the ton—the upper ton. But offer to love one who lives, barely lives, by her needle, and see how your own flesh and blood will hate you.
So passed the evening away. Then Walter would go. But he wanted to hear Athalia sing once more. No. She had no piano. His hand was in his pocket again. How he would like to send her one to-morrow, but he dared not say so. He did look around the room, to see where he could set it. There was no room. She could not sing any more to-night. Ask Jeannette. She sings a beautiful little song while we are at work. No, she could not. She was afraid to sing before strangers. But Charley asked her, in his blandest manner, and then she would sing one verse if he would go right home. How anxious she was to get rid of him. So she sung:
"There now, I hope you are satisfied. If not you may go, for I shall not sing another word to-night. I don't know how I came to do that."
No, they were not satisfied. Who ever knew a man that was? Who ever got one favor of a woman, that did not ask for two more? So they both asked both the girls to go to the theatre to-morrow night, and both promised.
More false steps. How many will it take to reach the end?
Walter went home, never more happy. You have seen how he was taken to task. He had defied the laws of caste.
It did not require stronger Argus eyes than his two sisters possessed to see how deeply he was enamored with Athalia. How they did wish they knew whether she had dared to look up to him, as he had down to her. How should they find out. It does not take mischief-makers long to contrive their plot. If one woman wants to ruin another one, there is one always ready to assist her in her wicked design. No doubt he was the father of millinery, for he caused the first apron to be made, and he has assisted largely in all the designs of female apparel from that day to this. Sometimes his fashion is very fig-leafish, barely hiding a portion of the body, while the limbs, head, neck, shoulders, and other "excitements," are left exposed to Adam's rude gaze. Then he contrives his fashion of so much cloth, that those who follow it may lose their souls in its attainment, and those who make them may feel, as they
Mischief is always busy. It must be so with an envious wicked woman.
The Morgans changed their tactics, and adopted those more wicked than I could invent.
They soon found that they wanted more dresses, and what was very remarkable, they did not want to go to the French dress-maker. What could be the reason? They had watched their brother; they had seen him go to Athalia's; they had seen him in the theatre with her; they had met them walking, arm in arm, in Broadway, "the shameless hussey;" and once they had entered Thompson's, and walked upstairs to take ice cream, "actually over our heads." Walter Morgan, the richest merchant's son, in New York, gallanting a seamstress—their own dress-maker. And every day some of their acquaintance were asking them, "Who is that beautiful girl I saw with Walter?" Of course they did not know; how could they tell that he had taken up with "such a thing?" In vain they talk to him, he was mum, or if he spoke of her, it was with the highest respect. Would he marry her? Ah, there was the rub.
"It is a pity," said Elsie, "that he would not ruin her, and that would be the end of it."
Did a spirit furnish that cue, or was it a wicked woman's own conceit? At any rate, it was a cue upon which they acted. Athalia was sent for, and the young ladies never were so affable before. Every opportunity was contrived for Walter to accomplish the purpose of a villain. Their schemes had the exact contrary effect desired. He had made such advances at first as "men about town" do make, and had met with such a decided repulse, not an angry one, but a virtuous one, that he never would try again.
"I expected it," said she to his proposals, "I am used to it—I am almost every day exposed to such tempting offers, to escape a life of poverty—I have ceased to look upon them as insulting—nature, and fashion, and the state of society, are such in this city, that a girl with an unfortunate face like mine, must fall, unless she is possessed of such fortitude as but few young girls are naturally gifted with. You may ask me that question every day; every day you may, if you feel like wounding the feelings of a poor girl, repeat your question, and every day you will get the same answer."
"Athalia, forgive me. Oh, forgive me; I never will repeat the question again; whether you forgive me or not, you need have no fear of that."
What a failure then had his sisters made. They did just what they did not intend to do; they led Walter to think, that his family would approve a match with one so virtuous, so beautiful, so lovely, even if she was a sewing girl, and he began to build castles in the air upon this foundation. They were very sandy, and a storm was approaching that would soon beat upon the frail walls, and like all such fabrics, down they will tumble.
ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL.
Marriage, death, bankruptcy, poverty, sin, and, finally, "plucked like a brand from the burning," are the contents, the introduction, and peroration, of this chapter. If you are satisfied at a glance, you can pass on, the filling up, is but the shading of the sketch. But if you are curious to know who marries, who dies, and who does worse—read.
"It is but a step from the palace to the tomb," yet the road sometimes seems a long and dreary one, leading through strange, dark places.
I have come to the conclusion, that lovers of romance, and those who cater for them, writing tales of fiction, have mistaken their vocation. Let them gather up and detail a few of the incidents of real Life Scenes as they occur, and there will be no occasion for fiction. So let us on with our narration of events.
Mr. Morgan was a merchant, wealthy as Crœsus, perhaps more so; and he had more need to be, for he lived "up town," in "up town" style. The simple interest upon the cost of his house and furniture was seven thousand dollars a year, and his annual expenses double that sum.
Of course his daughters had never taken a stitch in their lives. They had been to school, where nothing useful is taught; and learned what is called music, and could waltz to perfection. Walter, had been to college. What had he learnt? To drink a bottle of wine every day after dinner, and "fill up," with mint juleps, sherry coblers, and brandy smashes, the intermediate time. Not one useful thing had either of them been taught, not one lesson in the art of self-support; all was self-indulgence. They laughed, or would have laughed at the idea, if any one had dared to mention it, that the time would ever come, that they would have occasion to lift a hand to procure their own bread.
It is a bad school—it has many scholars.
Mr. Morgan came home one day in unusual glee; he was naturally a stern man. He had heard of the very successful voyage of the Matilda—named after his daughter—to China, where she would load with teas and silks for a home voyage. She was insured in a very rich London office. Some of his cautious friends advised him to "hedge," by insuring also in other offices; he had never met with a single loss in his life; he had often been his own insurer, and took about half the value of the Matilda now on his own insurance book, which showed a great many thousand dollars in his favor.
"Yes," said a Paul Pry, of my acquaintance, "more thousands than he is now worth, if his debts were paid."
Who believed it? Not the banks, which loaned him any amount he desired. Not the wife, and son, and daughters, for that stern husband and father never told them of his business.
"That is my business," was the cut-off valve which always shut down upon every question as certain as that of the steam engine at the point where it must change the motion.
After dinner and the second bottle, the family were startled by the sudden announcement he made for to-morrow.
"We start for Lake George to-morrow morning; come, get ready."
"Why, father, what has started you all of a sudden?"
"That's my business."
"Well, we cannot get ready, no way in the world."
"Pshaw! I could get a ship ready before ten o'clock."
"But we cannot get new hats."
"Plenty of time. Start right out."
"To-night? Buy a hat in the evening, who ever heard of such a thing? What would Mrs. Grundy say?"
"Ask her, she is going with us; or rather, we are going with them. Grundy is in shoal water, and wants to get out of sight a few days; and I want he should, for I am on his paper heavy."
"Oh, it is absolutely impossible for us to go to our milliner to-night."
"Go in the morning, then. Time enough."
"What? before ten o'clock. How vulgar you are, father."
"Very well: if you cannot get up new flying gibs, go to sea with the old ones."
"Well, I suppose we might send for Madam Pantanosi to call in the morning; but, dear me, there are our dresses all in the work-room, not one of them done. You don't expect Athalia is going to finish them to-night, do you?"
"Have you no others?"
"What if we have? the Grundys know that we have new ones making, and of course, will expect to see them. You don't expect your daughters, I hope, to wear old dresses, on a tour to the Lakes?"
"Why not? That is the place to wear them."
"You may talk, father, but it is out of the question."
"Well, settle it your own way. I go to-morrow, and if you are going with me, you had better be getting ready; besides, let me tell you, young Wendall is going up too. We are going to have some great sport, fishing."
That decided Elsie. If George Wendall and the Grundys were going, she must go, for he and Minnie Grundy needed watching. She would go, if she wore the old hat, and a dress that had been worn twice before.
"Where is that seamstress? she must work all night, and get my dress done any way."
"Elsie, daughter, she cannot do that, her eyes are very weak. You had better take her along with us, the poor girl; give her a little country air, and let her finish your dresses there."
"Yes, yes, that's it, wife, let her go along. She appears to be a right, tight little craft. A sail will do her good. What a pity she did not hail from the right port."
"You have very curious notions, father."
"That is my business."
"Well, for my part," says Matilda, "I think she can go just as well as not; our maid and she can have a room together, and nobody need to know that we have brought a seamstress along with us; if they did, they would think it very vulgar. Of course, she won't come to the table with us, at the hotel."
"No, indeed; I guess she will not; though, I suppose, we shall have a private table; shall we not, father?"
"That is my business."
But as it was settled that she was to go, it was, finally, thought necessary to tell her so, and she was sent for, and told of the arrangement.
How could she go? How start so sudden? How leave Jeannette? She could not go. Yet she would like to. Perhaps she never would have another opportunity. She would go down and see Jeannette, and if she could go, she would come up very early. Away she ran upstairs for her little straw hat and black mantilla. Walter had been a "silent member" of the party. What wild thoughts ran through his brain, when he found that Athalia was to be one of the party. Did he dream of the shady walk, the moonlit lake, and egg-shell boat, with only two in it, floating upon the glassy surface of the water? Did he think that he should climb the rocks with her, and wander through the ruins of old Ticonderoga? Yes, he did dream; youth do dream. Did she dream, while she stood before the glass, tying her bonnet strings? What of? Of the hook that he would bait and put in her hands, and the fish that would be caught. Fish! It is not fish alone that young girls catch, when young men bait hooks for them, in wild woods, and lonely glens, where mountain streams murmur soft music.
As she came down upon the steps, Walter was waiting there. What for? For a poor sewing girl. He wanted, he said, that she should stop with him and pick out a hat and some little articles, a toilet box, and sundry conveniences or necessaries, to one on a journey, for his sister Matilda.
Oh yes, she would do that, with pleasure, if he wished it. He did wish it. The selections were made with great taste and without regard to expense. The hat was a little treasure.
What was that sigh for? Can a woman—a young girl—just on the eve, too, of a journey to a watering place, see such a hat shut up in its paper case, without a sigh? It is more than human nature ever could do. Athalia is human, and that hat is just such a one as she would like herself. She is too poor. So she sighed and went home.
"Shall I send it?"
"Let it be until I return, and then I will give directions."
It is no matter what Walter said to her on the way home, but she had determined to go with the Morgans, to Lake George, and so she told him.
"Good night then, I must go home and get ready, you know what the word is with father—'that is my business.'"
He had a little other business. He went back to the store, and gave the necessary orders about the purchase.
"Would the lady be kind enough to write a little note that he would dictate, and put it in the bonnet box?"
"Certainly, anything to oblige the gentleman. Was that his sister? His cousin perhaps? Well, she is very pretty, at any rate. Was that her name? What a sweet name."
What sweet words to Walter. How we do like to hear those we love spoken of in such words.
How Athalia busied herself getting her few things ready. What she lacked, Jeannette, the good soul, lent her. She never thought how lonely the room would be for the two or three weeks she would be away.
"I wish I had a few dollars to spare, Jeannette, I certainly would go and buy just such a hat as I picked out this evening for Matilda Morgan. It was very pretty. And Walter, he admired it too. He said it was so tasty, when I tried it on, to let him see how it looked."
Just then there was a rap at the door.
"Oh there comes cousin Charley."
No, it could not be Charley, it was a little rap. The door was opened, and there stood a little girl with a bandbox and bundle.—It is a shame to send such little girls out late in the evening with such heavy bundles.
"Does Miss Lovetree live here?"
"Yes."
"Then this is the place."
"Oh dear," says Jeannette, "more work. Who can this be from? Why, Athalia, what is the matter, you look amazed?"
"I am amazed. Is there no mistake in the direction?"
"No, it is Miss Athalia Lovetree. No.—Broome street, up-stairs."
"Oh! I cannot take it, indeed I cannot. Accept such a present from him? No, no, no."
He had thought of that. Jeannette by this time had the bandbox open. Did woman ever resist that temptation?
"Ah here is a note. This will explain the mystery."
"To Miss Lovetree:—
"As it is decided that you will go with us to Lake George, please accept a few things that you will need, which I have commissioned my son to buy.
"From your friend,
"Mrs. Morgan."
"Oh that is a different thing, if they come from her. And then for him to pretend all the time that they were for his sister. It is too bad. Oh, but it is a love of a hat though! is it not, Jeannette?"
Yes, it was; that was settled. First one tried it on, and then the other. Jeannette said it was a bride's hat. Athalia said she ought to be ashamed of herself to say so. Then all the other little bijouterie were overhauled, and looked at, and talked over, and praised, and then the note was read again, and the postscript; there was a postscript, there always is a postscript to a woman's letter. It was the postscript that gave it the air of genuineness. It read:
"P. S.—Don't say a word to me, or hint where the hat came from, for I don't want Mr. Morgan or the girls ever to know; nobody knows but Walter."
No, nobody knows but Walter. There was no fiction in that.
In the morning there was another rap—louder this time. It did not disturb any sleep though; there had been none in that room that night. It was John, come for the trunk and bandbox—two things that a modern lady never travels without. There was a wagon load of them left the Morgan and Grundy mansions that morning, and they and their owners all arrived, in due course of cars and locomotives, at Lake George.
Mr. Morgan and George Wendall fished, the girls flirted, Athalia sewed and sighed, and walked out evenings, slyly, with Walter Morgan.
More false steps. Sly walks in town are bad—in the country, dangerous. There are a great many precipices, down which such a couple may tumble.
George was a glorious fishing companion for the shipping merchant. He could row and drive, and get up all the fixings; and, after dinner, talk, and laugh, and drink, till both went to bed "glorious."
"Mr. Morgan, you drink one bottle too many."
"Pshaw. What if I do? that is my business."
It is sometimes the wife's business.
George was a boon companion, that was all. He had nothing, did nothing, lived somehow, dressed well—ill-natured folks said he did not pay his tailor.
Who ever thought that he would be Mr. Morgan's son-in-law? He did, and so had his daughter, Elsie, lately concluded, for the country air and scenery are provocatives to that end.
"Ask father."
"Enough said."
He did. He took care to ask him just at the right time.
"Why, George, my boy, good fellow to fish. Did not think you had your hook there. Got any bait? No. Well I have. Enough for both of us. I will bait your hook, boy. That is my business."
"Thank you, sir. When shall it be?"
George knew the art of fishing with a fresh bait, and never losing sight of the fish after he had tasted it, until he had him safe bagged.
"When shall it be? Now, now—right off to-night. Nothing like going to sea while the tide serves."
He was a prompt man always. It was no use to say no, after he had said yes, or, "that is my business;" so in half an hour after that, Elsie Morgan was Elsie Wendall.
Of course more wine was drank, after which a letter was brought to him, from his head clerk, marked, "Important—in haste." So Mrs. Morgan told him.
"That is my business; take it up to my room. Do you think I am going to read the stupid letters of old Precision at this time of the evening, and my daughter just married?"
At ten o'clock next morning, after the mail had gone, he read:
How the bell did ring; how he stamped, and swore, and wrote, and yet he could not send his letter till next morning.
"Why did not old Precision insure at once? Every dollar on earth would be swallowed up if that ship were lost."
Simply because he was Precision, and the merchant, who had directed him for forty years, had never given him leave to act, upon his own discretion, in an emergency like this.
"That is my business," was the unvarying answer.
Two days after, he had another letter from his precise clerk. He did not order it up to his room, to wait till next morning, for he was in a tearing passion when it was handed him; and he felt as though he would have opened it if the biggest rocks in that mountainous region had been piled upon it.
What had so disturbed the rich merchant? Those who have them not, are apt to fancy that, riches and happiness are handmaids. What was the matter? His son, his only son, had just approached him, taking advantage, as Wendall had, of a propitious hour, when wine had done its work—he drank brandy since the news in that letter, and that fired, not soothed him—he approached him with a beautiful sweet girl upon his arm, to ask his consent to their marriage.
Mrs. Wendall screamed and fainted—that is, in appearance.
"Why, Walter! to that girl—marry that thing—a dressmaker"
Mrs. Morgan simply said, "Walter, you have disgraced yourself and the mother that bore you. And I never wish to see you again."
Athalia trembled and quailed before the storm of angry words and envenomed looks that surrounded her. How gladly would she have escaped. It was too late.
"Father, your consent."
"Never! You, my only son, marry a common sewing girl, never."
"It is too late. Here is my marriage certificate."
His father opened his mouth to curse him. What for? He had married a girl he loved—a girl, handsome, virtuous, industrious, but poor—a seamstress.
"A letter, sir;" said a servant.
"Give it me."
He tore it open and read;
"Sir:—
"Yours of the 12th inst. came too late. News reached the city an hour before that the Matilda was——"
He did not say lost. He looked it. He looked at his son and his poor trembling little wife, as though he wished them both at the bottom of the sea, with the Matilda and her cargo—all his fortune! He felt all the envenomed bitterness that a violent natural temper can feel, when heated and inflamed by drunkenness; for he was drunk, fashionably drunk; but not so much so but he could feel how irretrievably ruined he was, and that the failure to insure was occasioned by drunkenness, such drunkenness as the highest class of society indulge in, when they take an "extra bottle," after dinner, upon extraordinary occasions. He knew the fault was all his own. He had said, when urged to open the letter, an answer to which would have saved all, "that is my business."
It was a sad, sad business. That one more bottle had beggared himself, and all that were dependant upon him. He had just married one daughter to a man whose only qualification was "a good fellow," who could shoot, fish, smoke, drink, drive fast horses, cheat his tailor, and the poor widow boarding-house keeper, and, finally, take advantage of a besotted old rich merchant, when he had drunk just to the point of good-nature—when the indulger in strong drink feels like hugging everybody and "all the rest of mankind,"—to get his consent for him to marry his ugly daughter. It was a marriage of convenience, the obligations of which he intended to keep just as many other such obligations are kept in this city. All this ran through his mind upon the electric telegraph of the brain. Flash after flash it went through, and then came the heavy thunderbolt. He could have endured all the rest; he could not endure that his son should marry a sewing girl. Why? His father was a tailor, and he married a tailor's daughter, and he hated everything that could remind him of his own needle-and-thread origin. He hated her too, because she was so much more lovely than his own daughters.
For five minutes he sat with the letter in his hand, glaring at that, then at his wife and Matilda with a look of sorrow; then at Elsie and her half-drunken husband, with contempt; then his eye came back with a fixidity of hatred upon Walter and Athalia.
At length Walter ventured to break the awful silence.
"Father."
"Don't call me father again. I disown you, you poor milliner's apprentice. Beggar! Don't speak to me."
Walter paid no heed to the order, but said mildly, "is the Matilda lost."
"That is my business. Leave the room."
His sisters took up the cue.
"Yes, you had better go now. Go, and set up shop. You can carry home dresses for your wife."
He came to that afterwards. Then Elsie's husband put in a word of insult.
"I say, Walter, it strikes me, that is rather a costly topsail for a beggar's wife. I hope she gets her bonnets in an honest way. Who pays the milliners' bills?"
Walter raised his cane to strike the villain that could utter such a vile insinuation upon the character of a virtuous girl, and would have paid all his tailors' bills at one blow, but Athalia sprung upon his arm, and held it down. His father either thought, or pretended to think, that he raised his cane to strike him; probably not having heard the remark of Wendall, and thinking only of his own wrongs. He seized a bottle—a weapon that has knocked down its thousands—and sprang forward to strike down his son. His arm was already up, a horrid oath was struggling in his throat, his face turned black from the effects of suffocation, he reeled, the bottle fell to the floor with a crash, and he would have fallen down among the broken glass and spilt wine, but for Walter, who caught him in his arms, and bore him from the room towards his chamber. Athalia rushed out for a physician. It was too late!—Death had already said, "That is my business."
While these events were transpiring in the country, others of great import to the rich merchant's family were enacting in the city. Creditors are not slow when they see misfortune fall upon one, whom they were ready to bow to yesterday, to tread upon him to-day. Creditors and their ministers,—the judges, attorneys, sheriffs,—are all ready for a share of the pound of the broken merchant's flesh. Shylocks still live, and Antonios still fail.
That was a sad funeral cortége which accompanied the dead bankrupt back to the city. Sad, not so much from sorrow, as wounded pride and fallen greatness. It was sad to see the daughters of a dead father absolutely refuse to travel upon the same train, with an only brother's wife. He would not go without her, and so they went without him. It was night when they arrived. They had despatched John in advance, to set the house in order, and meet them at the depot with the carriage and a hearse. The latter was there, the former was not, and they had to submit to the indignity of a hired hack. At the house, all was dark. What could it mean? "That villain, John, has got drunk again!" That was the fact. Who taught him? He was only following the long-studied precepts of his employer and lady, the young ladies, the young gentlemen, and all their fashionable associates, in their fondness for exhilarating drink. Why should he not get drunk?
They rung the bell angrily. It was a long time before it was answered. Then a heavy footstep came down stairs—not up from the servants' room—and approached the door, and opened the inner one, so that he could see through the blind who demanded admission. A sharp-faced, keen, black-eyed, weasel-looking man, with a chamber-lamp in his hand, and one of Mr. Morgan's dressing gowns upon his back, stood before the astonished family with the question trembling upon his lips, of "Vats you vant here?"
"Want? we want to come in, to be sure, why don't you open the door? Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"Vell, you can't come in. I is the sheriff's man, and he has put me keeper here, and he tells me not to let anybody in without his order. You must go to him. Vat you vakes me up for?"
And he closed the door in their faces, and they heard his heavy step reverberating through the long hall, and up the broad stair-case, as he went back to his lounge, "in my lady's chamber."
There were heavy hearts upon the outside of that door. The men had brought the coffin up, and set it down upon the steps. The hearse and hired hack had driven off. There lay the dead—he never would say, "This is my business," again—the wine-maker might say so. Both were silent. Neither would own his work. In the vaults of that house, three thousand dollars worth—no, cost—of wines were stored. Fifty thousand dollars worth of the richest rosewood and mahogany furniture, china, cut glass, and silver ware, stood idle, while its late possessor lay in his coffin upon the threshold, with his family standing around, vainly asking permission to rest the body of the dead owner one night, in its journey to the tomb. What should they do? Walter, if he had been there, could have directed what to do. He was not. Then he was cursed in thought, if not word, because he was not there.
"It is all his fault," said Elsie; "it was his abominable marriage that killed father."
Where was her husband? She looked around for him. He had slipped away "to get a drink." What a brute, she thought. So he was. That is what going to "get a drink" makes of a man.
"We must go to Mr. Grundy's," said the widow.
How? The hearse and hack were gone, and could not be got back in an hour. A passing cart was called, and the coffin of the millionaire placed upon it, and the family followed, to knock at the door of a neighbor's house, with the same results—to be answered by another sheriff's officer, but who, by chance, happening to be an American, and possessed of common sense enough to know that the dead would not steal, and those who attended upon him would not be likely to do so, he opened the door, lit the gas, called up one or two of the servants still left in the house, and did a few other things that natural humanity dictates upon such an occasion. An hour after, the Grundys themselves arrived, to find their home in the hands of a "keeper," who had let in the Morgans by courtesy, and now admitted them as mourning friends of the family.
Here, I draw the curtain. You have already seen the termination of a man who could leave his young wife and her dead father standing in the street, to go and "get a drink." It was him that died in the rat hole, in Cow Bay. It was Elsie that told how he died, how she gave birth to a child by the side of her dead husband, and how the rats sucked up the life blood of that child.
You have seen Matilda, before. Turn back to a picture, in Chapter V., and look at her upon her wedding-day. It is needless for me to go with you along the beaten path of her career, down, down, down, from ball-room to bar-room; from house of——"a place to meet a friend"—to a house of——"ladies' boarding-house"—to a house of common resort—the abode of wretchedness, woe, sin, degradation, disease, and "painted sepulchres"—from that to a low room, with "my man," and, finally, to fill the picture in the Twopenny Marriage.
Let the curtain fall—the dead rest in peace.
ATHALIA, THE SEWING GIRL.
"It is their husbands' fault, if wives do fall."
"The weakest goes to the wall."
Walter came down on the train with the Grundys. They urged him to "abandon his folly, and go home with them." They little thought they had no home to go to themselves. He said, no; she was his wife, and he never would leave her. He thought so then. If he had left the bottle, he never would.
"Where shall we go, Athalia?"
"Come with me; I have a home."
So he went to her little room in Broome street. The door was fast, and the room dark. She rapped, and was soon answered by Jeannette's voice:
"Who is there?"
"It is me."
What a world of meaning is in those three little words. How the memory of many a wife will wander back into other days, when she heard a midnight rap, and putting her head out of the chamber window, where she had been "making a frock and rocking the cradle" all the early part of the night; and how her heart palpitates at the answer to her half spoken, half whispered question, "Who is there?"
"It is me," comes up to her ready ear in the open window. Down goes the sash, for the wind might blow on "the baby;" they "have got a baby." In a minute, oh half that time, "me" sees the light through the key-hole, and hears a little step running down stairs. It stops an instant to set the lamp on the table. What for? She could hold it in one hand, while she unlocked the door with the other. Yes, but when the door is open she will have work for both hands—both arms will be around the neck of somebody.
"Heigho, for somebody!" I wish every loving heart had somebody; somebody to say, "It is me."
"Wait a minute."
A little light flashed through the key-hole, then the bolt went back with a click, then the door opened, a night-cap and white gown, a pair of blue eyes, and some pale red curls, were seen a moment, and then a very light scream, and Athalia and Walter were in the dark again. The door was closed in their faces. Was she, too, shut out from her home?
"Open the door, Jeannette. Never mind your night-gown."
"Oh. I cannot; indeed I cannot. That is not all. Charles is here."
Charles there, at that time of night, and she in her night-gown! What can it mean?
"Jeannette, what does it mean?"
"Now, don't go to being angry with me, Athalia." And she opened the door a little way, and looked out. She had slipped on a wrapper, and slipped off the night-cap. What is there in a night-cap, or night-gown, that a lady should be ashamed to be seen in it?
"What does it mean, Jeannette?"
"Oh, now, don't go to being angry, Athalia, don't. Indeed I could not help it, I was so lonesome after you went away—only think of staying here all alone."
"Shame on you, Jeannette. And so because you were lonesome, you have taken cousin Charles to sleep with you."
"Yes; why not?"
"Why not! why, Jeannette?"
"Why, Athalia, we are married. You don't think I would do it if we were not, do you?"
"Married! ha, ha, ha! Come in Walter, you can come in now. We are all married folks together. Ha, ha, ha!"
How her laugh did ring. She was anything but angry.
"Why, Athalia, you are only joking."
"No. I am in sober earnest."
How Jeannette did laugh, and hug, and kiss Athalia; and then she ran to the bed, and there was a "kiss in the dark."
"Come, Charley, get up and see the bride. Come, we are all married folks together."
"Oh, Jeannette, we must not carry on so with Walter now."
"Why not? Are we not all married? If we cannot carry on a little now, I don't know when we should."
"Yes, but—"
"Walter's father is dead."
"Oh, dear! don't say that."
"I must; it is true. And Walter must stay here to-night; how shall we fix it?"
"Oh, that is very easy. There are two matrasses on the bedstead; we will lay one down here—the bolster will do for pillows—there are some nice clean sheets, and a spread. We will just take that side curtain and turn it round, and pin it to the window curtain, and then you see how easy it will be to have two beds and two bed-rooms. You and I will sleep on the floor, and Charles and Walter shall sleep on the bed."
No; that would never do. Charles and Walter would both sleep on the floor, and their wives should sleep where they always had, together on the bed.
That the girls would not listen to. They were their guests, and they must sleep on the bedstead—that was the state bed—the bed of honor—Walter had never slept on the floor in his life. Then the men put in their argument, and thus the question stood, until it seemed likely that both beds would remain unoccupied. Finally, it was settled by "compromise." Charley whispered Jeannette, and Jeannette answered aloud, "Why not? So we will. Husbands and wives should sleep together. Always together. What business has a man sleeping with anybody else?"—with another woman she thought.
So it was settled how they should sleep. Then there was another contention where, that seemed likely to be as interminable as the first. Finally, Athalia settled it. She took Walter by the arm and said, "Come," leaving Jeannette and Charley with the light, "because they were married longer and were more used to it."
Walter was soon asleep. Athalia lay listening to a low conversation between Charles and Jeannette, in which she caught, now and then, a word. "The West—new country—log cabin—little farm—cows, and pigs, and chickens—and a baby"—she thought that—and she thought how happy they will be, and how much better off than here in the city. So she was not at all surprised when Jeannette told her, in the morning, what they had concluded to do. In three days they did it.
When I was in their little cabin, and heard from the lips of Jeannette several things that I should not have known otherwise, I found that they had realized all their hopes, for they had not built them high. And when she found that I knew Athalia, how she did hang upon my arm, and insist that I should stay all night, and sleep in the little bed-room where the rose-bush I had so much admired, overhung the window, and tell her the story, how she got along, and what became of her, and all about it.
Shall I begin at the beginning, or in the middle, or at the end?
"Oh, at the beginning, to be sure. Where is she now? Is she alive?"
That is it; you are a true woman. You tell me to begin at the beginning, and then the very first question you ask is about the end. I see you are impatient, and so I will gratify you. I will begin at the beginning of the end, and finish in the middle. Athalia, poor girl, she is—
"Oh, don't say that—not dead!"
No, no; she is alive and very well, and almost as pretty as ever. She is a widow, and lives in New York, and keeps a boarding house, and is making a comfortable living.
"A widow! why, where is her husband?"
Why, where should he be? if she is a widow, he must be either dead or in California; it is about all the same in New York.
"What did he die of?"
The same disease that kills nine-tenths of his class—rum!
"Oh, dear, and he such a fine young man. I would have married him myself, if it had not been for Charley. Well, I have one great blessing; if Charles is not so rich as Walter, he is as sober as a judge. Oh, I forgot to tell you that he is almost one; he is Justice of the Peace. But do tell me, did Walter leave her rich? The Morgans were very wealthy."
Ah, I see now; Athalia never told of their failure, and how all their wealth vanished like morning dew; that all those five dollar carpets, thousand dollar mirrors, and single chairs that cost more than all your neat furniture, were sold under the hammer to pay debts; and that Walter had not a cent in the world, and that he lived a long time upon the money which she earned, with,