Part 34 (2/2)

”No, nor has not been lately. You are playing tricks with the wrong persons, trying to fool us.”

”Indeed, gentlemen, upon my honor it is no trick.”

She rang the servants' bell violently. ”Martha, do you know where Lucy Smith is? She is not in her room. Have you let her out to-night?”

”No, ma'am. I have not let anybody out but that sewing woman.”

”Where is Kate? Send Kate up. Kate have you let anybody out to-night?”

”Yes, ma'am. I let that sewing woman out.”

”You let her out! Martha says she let her out.”

”So I did.”

”And so did I.”

”Both of you.”

”I did.”

”Well, I did.”

”You have let out the ----. Get out of the room, you stupid Irish ----s.

You have let out the sewing woman, sure enough. I have lost my bet which I made with Frank, of a hundred dollars that I would keep her here till she would not want to go away.”

And there was such, a string of oaths as I never heard before, and hope I never shall hear again, particularly from female profane lips. None but a drunken slave driver, ever poured out such a stream of awful language, full of oaths, anger and billingsgate expressions, at the escape of one of his victims, as she did at the escape of a woman whom she had determined to debase to her own level, until she had brought her to that condition that she would feel degraded in the eyes of the world, would know that all her own s.e.x had closed and barred the door against her, so that she could never return to the paths of virtue, and she would be to her mistress a ”profitable investment,” for she would be attractive, by her beauty and manners, and ”draw custom to the house.”

But she had escaped--gone off too in a temper of mind which might send retribution back upon the head of one who under the guise of friends.h.i.+p had first robbed, then by pretended debt, enslaved her mind, coaxed and almost driven her into intoxication, and then prost.i.tuted her most shamefully. It would be idle to pretend that Athalia had escaped without sin. She had not. She had sinned deeply. She said afterwards while claiming some extenuation, though by no means trying to justify her fall, that her mind was so wrought upon by her disappointments of life, by her lone and friendless condition, by the acc.u.mulation of debt, by the terrible treachery of those she had entrusted herself with as such disinterested friends, by her anxiety to obtain her valued keepsakes and get money enough to redeem them, and then escape from the pandemonium she found that she had unwittingly entered, that she had determined to drown her thoughts in wine, and then she accepted the oft-repeated proposals of Frank Barkley to redeem her watch, which he honorably did, but which another _friend_, one of Mrs. Laylor's friends, whom she forced her to accept, and which cost her the friends.h.i.+p of Frank, robbed her of, and carried off so that she never saw it again; whether he kept it or gave it to Mrs. Laylor, she never knew.

Often she intended to fly, but it seemed to her that she could not get away; she was kept in one constant whirl of excitement so that she could not reason with herself long enough to determine what to do. What deterred her most, was that she had nowhere to go to, no friend to call upon for counsel or a.s.sistance, and thus she went on from day to day, adopting one plan in the morning to discard it at night.

Frank was very kind to her in a certain measure. He liked her, but it was a very selfish liking. He did not like to hear her talk about leaving. He liked her there, and he was almost as much her jailer as Mrs. Laylor. He took her out to all manner of dissipation, theatres, saloons, late suppers, b.a.l.l.s and frolics, in which strong drink--not Athalia Morgan--acted as wild a part as the wildest. But he offered her no means of escape. She began to have a sort of fondness for Frank. What woman can avoid liking one who is devoted to her? But this devotion to one was not what Mrs. Laylor wished. It was not what brought the most money to her iron chest. She would like to negotiate the charms of Athalia to some rich libertine every day, whenever she could meet with one fool enough to pay her well for her influence with the ”young widow.”

Among the most determined of her suitors, was a young Frenchman, who used every art which he knew well how to use with words and money, to win Athalia's favor. As a last resort, he pledged a splendid diamond ring to Mrs. Laylor, if she would accomplish what he could not.

When all other arts fail to work ruin and misery in a woman's mind, there is one left, one which concentrates all the power of all the lies of the father of deception. It is jealousy.

There is a little story in ”Oth.e.l.lo,” about the arts of a villain, to produce mischief by that power. It is nothing compared with the villainy and lies invented to produce jealousy between Frank and Athalia, so as to let in the Frenchman, and win that ring.

Villainy is too often successful in this life. It was in this case.

Jealousy, a feeling of revenge, drives more women to infidelity towards those they love, than all other causes.

It did its perfect work with Athalia, and then the fiend who had accomplished the work, laughed at her, and told her how she had been fooled, thinking it would have the usual effect, to make her careless of what she did in future. It had an entirely different effect upon Athalia. It was this that produced the state of mind that Adelaide called the dumps, the blues, and the tears that Stella saw her shed.

Stella had told her mother much that Athalia told her, much that the child did not understand, but the mother did, for she knew how girls were inveigled into those houses, and kept there as prisoners.

I have lately witnessed a scene, highly ill.u.s.trative of this fact. It is one of the ”Life Scenes of New York.”

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