CHAPTER VII.
A RETURN TO 1856--NICHOLAS HILL, IRON MERCHANT--HIS DEATH, HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS FRIEND--HOW DR. POMEROY BECAME A GUARDIAN, AND HOW HE DISCHARGED THAT DUTY--A RUIN AND AN AWAKENING--THE MARKET VALUE OF DUNDERHAVEN STOCK IN 1858.
Seven years before 1863, and consequently in 1856, died Nicholas Hill, amerchant of Philadelphia, whose place of business on Market Street aboveThird had been the seat of a respectable though not remarkably extensivetrade, for nearly a quarter of a century. His trade had been in iron andhardware, but the material of his stock by no means entered into his owncomposition, for he was a man somewhat noted for his quiet and retiringmanners and a pliancy of spirit making him at times the victim of theunscrupulously plausible. His private fortune met with sundry seriousdrawbacks on account of this weakness, though a generally prosperousbusiness enabled him to keep intact the few thousands which he had alreadywon, and gradually if slowly to add to the accumulation. He had remained awidower since the death of his wife ten years before his own demise; andhis pleasant though quiet little house on Locust Street, had only containedone member of his family besides himself, for years before his death--hisonly daughter and only child, Eleanor.
The warmest and longest-continued friendships are very often formed bypersons diametrically opposed in character and disposition; and the ruleseemed to hold good in the instance under notice. A friendship formedseveral years before between the merchant and Dr. Philip Pomeroy, when thelatter was a practising physician resident in the city proper, had neverdied out or become weakened, at least in the heart of the confiding andquiet dealer in iron, and there was no reason to believe that the sentimenthad been more transient in the breast of the physician. Mr. Hill had beensuffering under the incipient threats of consumption, for years, and thedoctor had been his medical attendant, as before the death of his wife hehad filled the same confidential relation towards that lady and the othermembers of his household. Neither personally nor by marriage had themerchant any near relatives in the city or its vicinity; and his retiringdisposition was such that while he made many friends in the ordinaryacceptation of the word, he had few who stood in that peculiar relationwhich the French, supplying a noun which has scarcely yet crept into ourown language, designate as _les intimes_.
It was not strange, then, that when Nicholas Hill was suddenly seized withhemorrhage of the lungs and brought home in an almost dying condition fromhis store, one afternoon in November, 1856, Dr. Pomeroy, who was hurriedlysummoned to his aid, was summoned quite as much in the capacity of friendas in that of medical attendant. The story of life or death was soon told.The merchant had believed, from the moment of attack, that his day ofprobation was over; and, apart from his natural anxiety for the welfare ofhis only child, there was little tie to bind the sufferer to earth. Hiswife--his wife that day as much as she had been at any period of theirwedded life,--had long been awaiting him, as he believed, in a betterworld; and there is something in the facility with which those quiet, goodpeople, who seem never to have enjoyed existence with the fiery zest whichtingles in finger and lip of the sons of pleasure and sorrow, give up theirhold upon being and pass away into the infinite unknown which lies beyondthe dark valley,--something that may well make it a matter of questionwhether theirs is not after all the golden secret of human happiness, forwhich all ages have been studying and delving.
The doctor came, with that rapidity which was usual with him, and withevery mark of intense interest on his face and in his general demeanor. Hefound the invalid sinking rapidly, and his attendants, the weepingEleanor, then a handsome, promising but defectively-educated girl of neareighteen, and two or three of the ladies of the near neighborhood who hadgathered in to tender their services when it was known that the merchanthad been brought home in a dying condition. A few words from the sufferer,uttered in a low tone almost in the ear of the stooping physician, and thenall the others were sent out of the room except his daughter, whosepleading gesture, asking to be allowed to remain within the room was notdisregarded, but who was motioned by the doctor to take her place at thewindow, beyond supposed hearing of the words that were to pass between thetwo friends.
"Tell me the exact truth," said the low voice of Nicholas Hill, when thesedispositions had been made. "I am prepared to hear any judgment which yourlips may speak. There is no hope for me?--I am dying?"
Either the doctor could not speak, or he would not. He merely bowed hishead in a manner that the questioner well understood.
"So I thought, from the first," said the dying man. "The life blood doesnot flow away in that manner for nothing. And I do not know that I regretthe end, for I have lived almost as long as I could make myself useful, andI think I am as nearly prepared to die as poor, fallen humanity can hope tobe."
"I hope and believe that you are indeed prepared to die, my dear, goodfriend," answered the doctor, with feeling in his tone, and the feeble handof the sufferer meanwhile within his. "I cannot hold out a false hope toyou--you cannot live. How gladly science and friendship would both joinhands in doing something to keep you in the world, you know; but how muchwe shall all miss you and grieve for you, you do _not_ know."
"That you will miss me, I hope," said the dying man. "But there is nooccasion whatever to grieve for me. It is a peaceful end, I think, and inGod's own good time. I have but one anxiety."
He paused, and the doctor nodded his head towards the side of the roomwhere poor Eleanor was sitting, trying to distract her own thoughts bylooking out of the window. The father saw that he understood him, andpressed the hand that he held.
"Yes, you have guessed rightly," he said. "My only anxiety is for the fateof my child. Eleanor is a good girl, but she is yet very young, and shewill need protection."
"She shall find it!" said the doctor, solemnly.
The face of the dying man lit up with an expression of the sincerestpleasure and happiness, and his feeble grasp again pressed the hand of highhealth which lay so near his own ebbing pulse.
"I believe you and I thank you, my friend as well as physician," hereplied. "I have not been afraid to think of this day, as they tell me thatso many are; and my affairs are in some degree prepared for it. I have ahandsome property, though not a large one, and you will find a will lyingin the private drawer of the safe at the store. With the exception of a fewlegacies to friends, a small one to yourself included--it all goes toEleanor, and you will find yourself named my executor."
"A confidence which flatters me, and which I hope I shall deserve," saidthe doctor, as the enfeebled man again paused for a moment.
"I _know_ that you will," the sufferer resumed. "Thanks to my property,Eleanor will not be a burthen to you, except in the demand of _care_. Herfew relatives, as you know, are distant ones, and none of them residenearer than California. There will be none to interfere with you in guidingher aright, keeping her pure in her remaining years of girlhood, andwatching over her until she becomes the wife of some honorable man, or insome other way ceases to need your protection."
"I accept the charge as freely as it is given, and I will perform it as Iwould for one of my own blood!" was the solemn answer of the medical man.
"I knew that before I asked, or I should never have asked at all!" said thedying man. "Eleanor, my daughter, come here."
The young girl obeyed and knelt beside the bed, striving to restrain hersobs and tears. The father laid his hand on her head and gently smoothedthe masses of dark brown hair with fingers that would so soon be beyondcapacity for such a caress.
"Eleanor," he said, "you are almost a woman in years, and you must bealtogether a woman, now. I am going to leave you--I may leave you in a fewminutes."
"Oh, I know it, father!--dear, dear father! Oh, what will become of me?"and in spite of her efforts to restrain herself she sobbed and chokedpiteously.
"You will be cared for, my child, not only by heaven but by kind friends;and you must not grieve so over what does not grieve me at all," said thedeparting parent. "Dr. Pome
roy is to be the executor of my estate, and yourguardian. Love and obey him, my daughter, in every thing, as you would loveand obey me if I was allowed to remain with you. Do you understand me?--doyou promise me, Eleanor?"
"I do understand you!--I do promise you, dear, dear father!" sobbed theyoung girl. "I will obey Dr. Philip, and try to be good all my life, sothat I can meet you where I know that you are going to meet my mother."
"My dear, good child!--you and the doctor have made me so happy! Kiss menow, Eleanor, and then let me sleep a few moments." And directly after thatkiss of agonized love was given, he fell back upon his pillow--as if he wasindeed dropping into a quiet sleep; but the doctor felt the hand that laywithin his relax its pressure, one or two sighs fluttered from thequivering lips, while a light foam tinged with blood crept up to them andbubbled there, and the moment after Eleanor Hill was fatherless.
And yet the poor girl who sobbed so heart-brokenly over the corpse of onewho had been to her the truest and kindest of parents, was not fatherlessin that desolate sense in which the word is so often used. The ties ofblood might be rudely broken, but did not the hand of true friendship standready to assert itself? Had not Philip Pomeroy promised the friend ofyears, that he would be father and protector to her--that he would shelterher with all the power given to his ripe manhood, and hold her pure as thevery angels, so far as he had power to direct her course? No--notfatherless: the weeping girl, in the midst of her sobs and unfelt caressesover what had once been the father of her idolatry, appreciated the truthand was partially comforted.
It so chanced that Dr. Pomeroy, in his domestic relations, was admirablyplaced for offering a home to the daughter of his dead friend. Marrying didnot seem to run in the Pomeroy family, for not only was the doctor aconfirmed bachelor, some years past middle age, but his only living sisterhad kept herself free, like him, of matrimonial chains, and presidedpleasantly over his household under her maiden name of Miss Hester Pomeroy.While the removal of a young girl of eighteen to a bachelor's residence,without the cover of female society, might have seemed grossly improper inspite of the color given to it by the guardianship so lately acquired,there could be no impropriety whatever in her becoming the companion and tosome extent the pupil of the bachelor's maiden sister of forty.
Dr. Pomeroy's residence was at that time within the city limits, though inthat extreme upper section bordering on the Schuylkill; but his practicehad been gradually extending out into the country over the river; and ideaslong cherished, of a residence beyond the reach of the noises of the greatcity, were gradually becoming realized. At the time of the death of hisfriend, that mansion which it has just been our sad privilege to enter,was in the course of erection; and in the spring which followed he took uphis abode within it, with his sister, his ward, and that array of domesticsnecessary for a man of his supposed wealth and somewhat expensive habits.
It did indeed seem that Eleanor Hill was blessed among orphans if not amongwomen. Her tears dried easily, as they had good cause to do. The residenceto which she had been removed was a very handsome and even a luxurious one;Miss Hester Pomeroy was one of those good easy souls who neither possessany strength of character themselves nor envy it in others,--with an almostidolizing admiration of her gifted and popular brother, and a belief thatno movement of his could be other than the best possible under thecircumstances; and the doctor himself, a man of fine education,distinguished manners, admitted professional skill, and an uprightness ofcarriage which seemed to more than atone for any lack of suavity in hisdemeanor--the doctor himself appeared to be anxious, from the first, thatno shadow of accusation should lie against his name, of inattention to theward committed to his charge. From the day of her coming into his house,whenever his professional engagements would allow, he spent much time inthe society of Eleanor, greatly to the delight of Miss Hester, who hadthought herself very unattractive company and wished that her giftedbrother had some one in the house more worthy to be his companion. Heselected books for the young girl; brought home others; directed herstudies into channels calculated to form her mind (at least some portionsof it); invited the young people of the neighborhood to meet her; drove herout frequently; took such care of her health as he might have done of thatof a darling daughter or an idolized sweetheart; and gave evidence thatnone could doubt, of his intention to fulfil in the most liberal andconscientious manner the sacred promises he had made over the death-bed ofher father.
To the young girl, meanwhile her surroundings became Elysium. She had warmaffections, of that clinging character which finds no difficulty infastening almost anywhere if permitted time and quiet. She had little forceof will and still less of that serpent wisdom which discerns the shadow ofdanger before that danger really approaches. She was equally good, bynature, and weak by disposition--formed of that material out of which goodwives and mothers are so easily made, and which may, on the other hand, befashioned so easily into the most melancholy semblance of lost womanhood.She was handsome, if not strictly beautiful, and the lips of her guardian,so strict to most others, told her so with smiles and low-breathed words.She was flattered by his preference, paid her deferentially in public andyet more unreservedly when none but themselves heard the words heuttered,--proud to be thus distinguished by one so attractive in appearanceand unimpeachable in position,--bound to him by that obedience enjoined byher dying father, and by that strong tie of gratitude which she felt to bedue to her willing and unrecompensed protector,--and brought into thatclose communion with his strong mind which could not fail to sway anunmeasured influence over her, by those studies in poetry, romance andphilosophy which he had himself directed.
It is an old story, and melancholy as old. Before she had been six monthsan inmate of the house of Dr. Pomeroy, Eleanor Hill loved him as madly asyoung, defenceless and untrained girlhood can love that which supplies itsbest ideal and lures it on by the most specious of pretences. Not more thanthat time had elapsed, when she would have plucked out her heart and laidit in his hand, had he asked it and had such an act of bodilyself-sacrifice been possible. Less than a year, and the tale of her destinywas told. For weeks before, the words of her "guardian" and "father" hadbeen such as ill became either relation, but not warmer, still, than thesnared heart of the young girl craved and echoed. Then came that promise ofthe dearest tie on earth, which falls on the ear of loving woman with asweeter sound than any other ever uttered under the sun or stars. He lovedher--that proud, high-spirited, distinguished man, the friend of herfather, and the man for whose hand (so he had told her, not boastingly butin pity, and so she had every reason to believe) the wealthiest, the mostbeautiful and the most arrogant belles of Broad Street and Girard Avenuehad been willing to barter all their pride and all their coyness--he loved_her_, the poor young and comparatively portionless girl, held her worthyto be his wife, and was willing to share his high destiny with her!
What marvel that the untutored heart beat faster than its wont, when thatgolden gate of paradise was opened in expectation to her eyes? What marvelthat all the lessons of childhood, which stood between her and obedience tothe master of her destiny, were forgotten or only remembered withabhorrence? What marvel that the past became a dream, the present dull andunendurable, and only the delirious future worth a wish or a thought? Whatmarvel that one evening when the full moon of August was peeping in throughthe trees which already began to cast their shade over the new home intothe room where the "guardian" and the "ward" were sitting alonetogether--when the air seemed balm and the earth heaven--when thenight-sounds of late summer made a sadness that was not sorrow, andtemptation put on the very robes of holy feeling to do its evil work--whenthe lips of the subtle, bad, unscrupulous man of the world repeated wordsas sweet as they were unmeaning, promises as hollow as they were deliciousand prayers as bewildering as they were sacrilegious--when the heart of theyoung girl had proved traitor to her senses and all the guardian angels ofher maidenhood had fled away and left her to a conflict for which she hadneither wisdom nor strength--what marve
l that the moment of total madnesscame to one and perhaps to both, and that before it ended Eleanor Hill layupon the breast of her destroyer, a poor dishonored thing, frightened,delirious, half-senseless, and yet blindly happier in her shame than shehad ever been while the white doves still folded their wings above her!
We know something of ends and something of intermediary occurrences, butvery little of beginnings. The common eye can see the oak from a tinysprout to its lordship of the forest, but none may behold the firstmovement of the germ in the buried acorn. The unnatural rebellion ofAbsalom, the reckless treason of Arnold, the struggle for universal empireof Napoleon, all stand out boldly on the historic page, as they appeared atthe moment of culmination; but who sees the disobedient son of David whenhe walks out into the night with the first unfilial curse upon his lips, orthe arch-traitor of the Western Continent as he starts from his sleep withthe first thought of his black deed creeping under his hair and curdlinghis blood, or the victor of Marengo nursing his first far-off vision of thedangerous glory yet to be! We can know nothing more of the beginnings ofvice in the hearts of the great criminals of private life. It can never beknown, until all other secrets are unveiled before the eyes of a startleduniverse, whether Dr. Pomeroy, (no imaginary character, but a personage tooreal and very slightly disguised), in this ruin wrought by his hand hadbeen acting the part of an unmitigated scoundrel from the beginning, a lieupon his lip and mockery in his heart when he promised the dying NicholasHill protection to his helpless daughter, and every act and word of hisintercourse with her subtly calculated to bring about the one unholyend,--or whether he had merely _permitted_ himself, without earlypremeditation, to do the unpardonable evil which proved so convenient. Forthe welfare of the victim, it seemed a question of little consequence: forthe credit of humanity, always enough disgraced, at best, by its robbersand cut-throats of the moral highway, it may be at least worth a thought.After events make it doubtful whether the very worst had not been intendedand labored for from the outset; and certain it is that if there had beforebeen one redeeming trait to temper the moral baseness of Philip Pomeroy,from the moment when that ruin was accomplished no obstacle of goodnesshindered his way towards the end of the irredeemable. If he had before keptterms with Eleanor Hill and his own soul, he kept those terms no longer.
The poor girl had of course no right to be happy in her new and guiltyrelation, and yet she was so for a time--almost entirely happy. She hadbeen wooed and won (oh, how fearfully _won_!) under an explicit promise ofmarriage and with continual repetitions of words of respect which left herno room to doubt the good faith of the man who uttered them. She was morethan a little weak, as has already been said; very unsuspicious andclinging in her trust; and neither wise enough to know that the man whorespected her sufficiently to make her his wife, no insurmountable obstaclelying in his way, would have made her so before laying his hand on the hemof the garment of her purity,--or precise enough to feel that any disgracehad really fallen upon her, which would not be removed the moment thatpromise of marriage was fulfilled. Then, by a natural law which can beeasily understood if it cannot be explained, the young girl a thousandtimes more deeply loved the master of her destiny because he had madehimself entirely so; and for a time, at least, the conduct of the victortowards his helpless captive was full of such exquisite tenderness inprivate that she could not have found room for a regret had her heart evenrevolted at the situation in which she was placed. He did not speak of animmediate fulfilment of his promise of marriage--no, but he had beforehinted that owing to certain temporary circumstances (oh, those "temporarycircumstances"!) the hour when he could make her his own before the worldmust be yet a little delayed; and so the young heart took no fright at theprocrastination. Good Miss Hester, meanwhile, saw nothing suspicious andsuspected nothing improper. Perhaps she saw a deeper light of tenderness inthe eyes of the poor betrayed girl, when they beamed upon him who shouldhave been her husband; and perhaps she saw that her brother treated hisward with even more delicate attention than he had shown during the monthsbefore; but the spinster's eyes had no skill to read beneath the mask ofeither, and if she thought upon the subject at all her impressions were notlikely to go farther than the mental remark: "How good Philip is toEleanor; how obedient to him she seems to be; and how happy for both thathe ever became her guardian and she his charge!"
Under such circumstances the awakening, even a partial one, could not comeotherwise than very slowly. But unless the young girl was an absolute idiotor utterly depraved, an awakening must come at some period or other. Thoughweak and ill-trained, Eleanor Hill was by no means an idiot; and the angelsof heaven could look down and see that through all that had occurred therehad been no depravity in her soul, no coarse, sensual passion in hernature. If she had fallen, she had been sacrificed on the altar of man'sunscrupulous libertinism, and offering up the incense, meanwhile, of agood, yielding, compliant, worshipping heart. The moral perceptions mayhave been blunted, but they were not annihilated; the reason may have beenchoked and dizzied in the flood of feeling, but it was immortal and couldnot be drowned.
Months had elapsed after the culmination of their intercourse, before thesense of right became strong enough and the heart bold enough, for theyoung girl to hint at the fulfilment of what had been so long delayed. Theanswer was a passionate kiss and an assurance that "only a little time moreshould elapse--just yet it would not be prudent and was in factimpossible." Eleanor wondered: she had not yet learned to doubt; and for atime she kept silent. Again, a few weeks later, and the question wasrepeated. This time a light laugh met her ear, and there was more of themaster toying with his slave or the spoiled boy trifling with hisplay-thing, than there had been in the first instance. Still the promisewas repeated, and still there were "insurmountable obstacles." Anotherinterval of silence, then a third request, this time with tears, that hewould do her the justice he had promised. To this ill-nature responded, andfor the first time the young girl learned what a claw of pride andarrogance lay folded in the velvet palm of the tiger. She shrunk awaywithin herself, at his first harsh word, almost believing that she musthave committed some wrong in speaking to him of his delayed promise; andwhen he kissed her at the end of that conversation and said: "There, runaway and do not bother me about it when I am worried and busy!" she almostfelt--heaven help her poor, weak heart!--that that kiss was one of neededpardon!
The dullest eyes will recognize at last what only the quick and accustomeddiscern at first. Eleanor Hill had been blind, but her eyes graduallyopened,--with an agony in the first gleams of light, of which her yielding,compliant nature had before given little promise. Nearly two years hadelapsed after her becoming the ward of Dr. Philip Pomeroy, and more thanone year after that fatal era in her own destiny, when the wronged girl,then twenty and within only twelve months of her legal majority, at lastsounded the depths of that man's nature sufficiently to know that he hadbeen inventing the existence of obstacles--that he had never intended tomarry her, at least at any near period. At that moment of discovery ahigher and prouder nature than hers might have been moved to personalupbraiding, despair and perhaps to suicide: with Eleanor Hill the onlyresult was that a sense of shame, before kept in abeyance, came in andsettled down upon her, making her more humble than angry or indignant, andunnerving her instead of bracing her mind anew for any conflict that mightarise in the future. Aware, at last, of his deception, she could not quitebelieve in her guardian's utter baseness; and she still _hoped_ that thoughhe might demand his own time for the fulfilment of that promise which hadwon her from herself, in his own time he would render her that justice inreality so poor but to her so full of compensation for all the past.
Would it not seem, even to one most fully acquainted with all the falsehoodof the betrayer and all the cruelty of the torturer, that the cup of thatman's infamy was nearly filled? And yet--sorrow that the bitter truth mustbe recorded!--not a tithe of that which was to curse him before the end,has yet been indicated. Slowly and surely the blackening crimes
pile up,when the love of virtue and the fear of heaven have both faded out from thehuman heart; and who can measure the height to which those mountain massesof guilt may tower, after the first foundations have been laid in oneunrepented wrong, and before the coming of that day when the criminal mustcall upon those very mountains to fall and bury him away from the wraththat is inevitable!
Dr. Pomeroy came home late one evening in December, 1858. Hester had longbeen in bed, and Eleanor, as was her habit, had waited up for his return.Some weeks had now elapsed since her discovery of his deception, but hopehad not yet died out, nor had all her confidence been lost in thataffection for her which she believed underlay all the impropriety of histreatment. So far, except in the one particular, he had treated her withalmost unvarying kindness; and while that pleasant status existed and hopehad yet a little point for the clinging of her tenacious fingers, it wasnot in the nature of the young girl to despair. She met him at the door, asshe had done on so many previous occasions, assisted him to divest himselfof the rough wrappers by which he had been sheltered from the winter wind,and when at last he dropped into his cushioned chair before the grate,which had been kept broadly aglow to minister to his comfort, took herplace half by his side and half at his feet.
Perhaps there was some malevolent spirit who on that occasion, before theglow of the winter fire, once more brought to the lips of the poor girlthat subject always lying so near her heart--marriage. She mentioned theword, and for the first time since he had given her shelter under hisroof, Philip Pomeroy hurled an oath at her. Perhaps he had been taking winesomewhat too freely, in one of the tempting supper-rooms of the city; orsome other cause may have disturbed his equanimity and brought out thetruth of his worst nature. The reply of Eleanor Hill to this was the notunnatural one of a burst of tears, and that outburst may have maddened himstill more. The truth came at last, in all its black, bitter, nakeddeformity:
"Eleanor, you have made a fool of yourself long enough! No more of thiswhining, or it will be the worse for you! When _I_ marry _you_, I shall bevery nearly out of business; and if you have not had judgment enough toknow that fact before, so much the worse for your common sense!"
Eleanor Hill staggered up from her chair and cast one glance full into theface of her destroyer. Her eyes could read the expression that it bore,then, if they had never before attained the same power. There was neitherthe smile of reckless pleasantry nor the unbent lines of partial pity forsuffering, upon that face. All was cold, hard, determined, cruel earnest,and the victim read at last aright what she should have been able todecipher more than two years before. And never the life of a dangerousinfant heir went out beneath the choking fingers of a hired murderer, atmidnight and in silence in one of the thick vaulted chambers of the Tower,more suddenly or more effectually than at that moment the last honorablehope of Eleanor Hill expired, strangled by the hand of that "guardian" whohad promised beside a dying bed that he would shield and protect her as hisown child!
In that hard, cold face Eleanor Hill at last read her destiny. She had beenweak, compliant and submissive, but never reconciled to her shame; and atthat moment began her revolt.
"I understand you at last," she said. "After all your promises, you will_not_ marry me!"
"Once for all--no!" was the firm reply, the cruel face not blenching inthe least before that glance, mingled of pain and indignation, and sosteadily bent upon it.
"Then I have lived long enough in this house--too long!" broke from thelips of the young girl. "I will leave it to-morrow. You cannot give me backthe thing of most value of which you have robbed me--my honor and my peaceof mind; but my father left my property in your hands--give me back that,so that I may go away and hide myself where I shall never be any moretrouble to you or to any others who know me."
"Humph! your property!" was the reply, in so sneering a tone that even theunsuspicious ears of the victim caught something more in the manner than inthe words themselves.
"Yes, I said my property--the property my father left in your hands forme!" answered poor Eleanor, striving to conquer the deadly depression ather heart and to be calm and dignified. "You have told me the truth atlast; and I will never ask you the question again if you will give meenough money for my support and let me go away from this life of sin intowhich you have dragged me."
"You want to go away, do you!" again spoke the doctor, in the same sneeringtone. "And you expect to support yourself upon what you call 'yourproperty?'"
"I do want to go away--I must go away, Dr. Philip!" answered the victim,still managing to choke down the tears and sobs that were rising sopainfully. "You have cruelly deceived a poor girl who trusted you, and wehad better never see each other again while we live."
"Your property, you said! Bring me that large black portfolio from the topof the closet yonder," was the only and strange reply. With the habit ofher old obedience the young girl went to the place designated, found thepocket-book and brought it to him. He opened it, took out half a dozenpieces of what seemed to be bank-note paper, and handed them over to herwithout an additional word.
"What are these, and what I am to do with them?" she asked, in surprise.
"They are 'your fortune' that you have been talking about, and you may dowhat you like with them if you insist upon leaving my house!" was thereply.
"I do not understand you!" very naturally answered the recipient, making nomotion to open the papers. "If these are mine, I cannot tell what to dowith them or how much they are worth."
"Oh, I can tell you their value, very easily, though I might be puzzled todirect you as to the other part of your anxiety!" said the doctor, with ascarcely-suppressed chuckle at the bottom of his sneer. "They are the scripfor four thousand shares in the capital stock of the Dunderhaven Coal andMining Company, in which, with your consent, I invested the forty thousanddollars left you by your father; and their present worth is not much, asthe company unfortunately failed about six months ago, paying a dividend offive-sixteenths of a cent on the dollar. The amount would be--I remembercalculating it up at the time of the failure--just one hundred andtwenty-five dollars."
"And that is all the money that I have in the world!" gasped the younggirl, tottering towards a chair.
"Every penny, if you leave my house!" answered the model guardian. "If youremain in it, as I wish, and forget all the nonsense that priests and oldwomen have dinned into your ears, about marriage,--your fortune is just asmuch as my own, for you shall find that there is nothing which I can affordto purchase for myself, that I will not just as freely purchase for you!"
Eleanor Hill said not a word in reply. She had sunk into a chair andcovered her face with both her hands, through the delicate fingers of whichstreamed the bright tears, while her whole frame was shaken and racked bythe violence of her mental torture. How utterly and completely desolate shewas at that moment! Refused the justice of marriage by the man for whomshe had perilled all, and bidden no longer even to hope for thatjustice--then coldly informed that if she left the house of her betrayershe went away to beggary, as all the fortune left her by her father hadbeen squandered by imprudence or dishonesty,--what additional blow couldfall upon her, and what other and heavier bolt could there yet be storedfor her in the clouds of wrath?
The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 Page 9
