Part 29 (1/2)

”None but friends,” there.

The victim that Nannette went to put in place, was a young clergyman, like other men in the vigor of youth, possessed of like pa.s.sions. He would have sought a wife, but his salary would not support one in the style that she would demand, or his congregation expect their pastor to maintain; and so he sought indulgence where he had found out accidentally that some of the members of his own church had sought it for themselves.

He had slipped in, with handkerchief over his face, just before Mrs.

Laylor went out. She told him that she was going to the railroad depot to meet a young woman from the country, a dress-maker, whom she had sent for, to come and make a few dresses for her and ”my daughter,” as she unblus.h.i.+ngly, called Nannette, who, she said, ”had been away from home, at school.”

The words were true, yet the speech was a lie, a wicked lie, made to deceive one who had been unwary enough to put his finger in a trap. She had been away from home, a home where she left a mother, and brothers, and sisters. And she had been at school--a school where language and manners are taught; but, oh! what language, and what ways, and manners.

It is a school which is computed to have thirty thousand teachers in this city.

What strange inconsistencies our human nature is possessed of. This Nannette had naturally a good heart. We saw that in the scene where Mrs.

Morgan discovers the depth of depravity to which one of those teachers had dragged down her husband. Yet, no sooner is Athalia placed by misfortune in a position to be subject to temptation, than she offers her gratuitous services to Mrs. Laylor, to effect her complete ruin.

What for? Who can answer? I cannot, unless the fable of the fox that lost his tail in a trap, will give a cue to the solution. I fear, that we are too apt to wish others no better than ourselves. It must have been some such motive that actuated Nannette: the little pecuniary advantage offered by Mrs. Laylor for her a.s.sistance, does not seem to be a sufficient motive for one female, though she herself has lost the priceless jewel of female virtue, to wish to bring another of her s.e.x into that vortex which engulfs all who come within its maelstrom power, as certain as that upon the Norway coast. Be the motive what it may, she had certainly lent herself this day, as a willing tool, to do a double deed of wrong.

I cannot name the clergyman who was to be made--had been made--the victim in this nefarious plot, because he is still living, and has paid the penalty of ruined health for visiting such a house, and a still greater penalty of a gnawing conscience for the sin, and the lies told to cover it up.

As a _nom de plume_, I will call him, Otis, because it is the most dissimilar to his own, of any one I can think of.

Otis had been tempted to visit this house, as I said before, by a natural strong pa.s.sion, but that would have been insufficient, had not a sort of Paul Pry friend told him of the delinquency of one of his flock, and urged him to watch him. He did so, saw him enter the house with a woman, certainly not his wife, charged him afterwards, with a view to his reformation, and was met with a plump denial of the character of the place, and even threatened with exposure of his attempt to watch and pry into other peoples' business. Goaded with such an accusation, he retorted upon his informer, and he in his turn reiterated the charge, and urged Otis to ”call on a professional (that is pastoral) visit,” and satisfy himself.

This he did, and found the house most genteelly and richly furnished; the owner, ”a widow, living,” she said, ”upon the interest of money in bank,”--she meant the interest of bankers' money--a very modest, genteel lady, very much pleased to have him call, and begged him to repeat the visit ”some afternoon or evening when the young ladies, her nieces and daughter, would be at home, and if he was fond of music, they would play for him, and one of them could sing beautifully.” She could sing the ”Mermaid's song.” He was completely deceived. Who might not be by such a siren? The truth is, that her penetrating eye had seen at a glance quite down into his very secret thoughts, and that he possessed pa.s.sions which she could inflame and turn to account, and she laid all her plans to that end. Although satisfied, after one or two visits, that all the inmates of the house were correct, he had his suspicions aroused as to those who visited them, for he could not help noticing the fact, that while he was there one evening, there were no less than five calls, apparently of couples, who were received in a dark hall, with whispered words, and then went upstairs, and after awhile went out in the same quiet way. Twice, he saw through the crack of the door that the ladies were veiled with thick dark veils, such as we meet every day upon the Broadway side-walk. But the most convincing thing of all, was an incautious word spoken aloud by one of the visitors as Mrs. Laylor was letting him out. He knew the voice. It was the man whose conduct had led him first to this house. Then he was so well satisfied, that he told Mrs. Laylor his suspicions, and she acknowledged that she did sometimes let a room to a gentleman and lady, but to none except persons of the highest respectability, such as himself, for instance. That was a cue.

He took it and fell into the snare. She agreed ”for a consideration,” to introduce him to one of the most respectable ladies, upon the understanding that she was to remain closely veiled,--as the whole proceeding was to be veiled from the Argus eyes of the world.

The ”respectable lady” was drawn from the same house to which we have before had an introduction; in short, she was the same ”lady” in whose room Athalia saw her husband from Nannette's room. With Otis she played the part of ”clergyman's widow,” and for that purpose always dressed in deep mourning, just as her sisters in sin do now every day in the fas.h.i.+onable promenades of this city; and she played it well, until one night, after having taken one bottle extra between them, for he had not yet learned that wine drinking was but little better than whiskey drinking, ”she let out on him,” in such a manner that his eyes were opened, and he determined to leave the house. But he had tasted sin, and who that has, but well knows how much harder it is afterwards to resist the temptation?

So he came back. What an excuse he made to conscience as he did so!--That it was only to upbraid the woman for deceiving him. He deceived himself. First, in trusting himself in a deceitful woman's power; and, secondly, in supposing that after she had deceived him once, she would not again. This last visit was upon the very night in which Athalia was introduced into the house, and hence the lies to inflame his mind, and the art made use of to give him a stolen glance of her face.

It is no wonder that the first man fell, when ”tempted of a woman.” It is idle to talk of our power to withstand their seductive arts. Otis was entrapped again. The sight of Athalia's beauty inflamed his already wine-heated blood, and he readily offered Mrs. Laylor a hundred dollars to bring about a successful negociation. This was just what she intended--what she expected--she had baited her trap high, and the game was already caught. And he was not the only one she intended to catch with the same bait. She intended to use her as a profitable investment upon all her ”regular customers”--for all such houses boast of such--as long as she could make the lie of ”fresh from the country,” pa.s.s as current coin. She little thought, and cared less, how many lies she had to contrive and tell Athalia, before she could accomplish her purpose.

It does seem as though, when a woman loses her own virtue, that she imagines all her s.e.x have lost or would lose theirs just as easy as herself.

”I drag down,” should be graven upon the brow of every one of her cla.s.s.

Whether man or woman, whoever comes within their influence--and who does not, since they are permitted to go forth at noonday through the thoroughfares of this city, seeking whom they may devour, and all night long they show their brazen faces in the streets, ”picking up” poor fools for victims, whom they drag down--true, they go willingly--to their dens of destruction.

It does seem as though when a man loses his balance so far as to fall into the influence of such a woman, that he is ”ready to believe a lie even unto his own d.a.m.nation.” How else could Walter Morgan--there are a great many Walter Morgans--leave such a wife as Athalia for such a Jezebel as he did? How else did such a man as Otis, whose business it was to watch the fold, allow the wolf to enter and carry off the shepherd? Why, after he had found out how much he had been cheated, did he believe the lies of the cheat again? Who can answer? I cannot. I can only say, that in this branch of intoxication, the only safe rule is that of the teetotaller, ”touch not, taste not, handle not;” and it must be more rigidly applied in the one case than the other. A man may possibly touch liquor and drink not. Can he play with a harlot and not fall? Otis should have preached a sermon, not to his congregation, but to his own conscience in his own closet, from this text:

”For a wh.o.r.e is a deep ditch: and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

”She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressions among men.”

She certainly had increased the transgressions in the case of Otis, and she lay in wait for Athalia as a prey.

Otis would have sought an introduction immediately, for wine had mastered reason; wine, that is made expressly for such houses, had inflamed his blood.

This the master-piece of iniquity knew would never answer. But she promised him that for the sum named, she would bring about the desired interview.

”To-night?”

”Yes. At least she would try.”