Part 44 (1/2)
Ah, well! _C'est la vie_ in New York.
”So we sat and talked, and eat and drank, a long time, for time went merrily on, and at last he poured out the last of the good bottle, and we were just going to drink it and go, for I said, 'I must go home, I have a good mile to go yet,' and he said, 'Oh, I will see you safe home.' So as I was lifting the gla.s.s, he caught my arm, and said, 'Stop, there is a fly in it;' and he took my gla.s.s and began to look about for something to take the fly out.
”'Oh, this will do.' And he took a little folded piece of paper out of his pocket, and stooped down a little under the table, as though to throw it on the floor.”
”What for?”
”Do you think he could have put anything in the gla.s.s out of that piece of paper, just in the moment he had it? I thought there was a bitter taste. I wish I had thought so at first. But I drank it, and then started to go home. When I got in the street, I did not know which way I went. I should have gone up Broadway, but we did not. Everything seemed so strange. I felt as though I could fly almost. I never felt so before.
I clung to his arm, I could not walk without it. I felt as though I could almost hug him. And then he put his arm around my waist; I am sure I would not have let him do that if I had known what I was about; and so we went on, I do not know how far, or which way, but it could not have been a great way, and then he went up to a great fine house, with a silver plate on the door, with a name on it in great letters, it was Phillips or Brown, or something, only one name--just as though they were ashamed of the other, or else did not want to be known, or something. I said, don't go in there, what will the folks think? and he said, 'Oh, this is a friend of mine lives here, a very nice lady, and we will stop and rest a little while, and then I will go home with you. I guess the Hiedsick has got in your head a little, and we will go in here and wait awhile, till you feel better.' Well, I did feel as though I could not go home, until I got over my dizziness, and when he said, he knew the folks, and that they were nice people, I thought I would go in a few minutes. So he rung the bell, and then a woman came and opened a little blind in the door, so that she could see who was there, and then he said, 'Open the door, Leta,' and then she said, 'Oh, is that you?' and then I knew he was acquainted there, and in we went, and he whispered something to her, and then she called the servant girl and told her to show the gentleman up to No. 6. There it was, No. 6 again. And there it was again, for she said, 'there is a gentleman and lady in No. 6 now; I will give them another, all right.' I am sure, I never shall hear that word again without believing it means all wrong. But I scarcely knew right from wrong; I just held to his arm, and went wherever he led me.
It was a very nice room that she showed us in. There were beautiful pictures on the walls; I could not see very well what they were, but I thought they looked like some I had seen once before, such as I am sure never should be hung up anywhere. There was a great mirror, and marble-top tables, and washstand, a very rich carpet, and such a splendid bed, and chairs and rocking chairs, one of which I sat down in, for I felt so tired and sort of sleepy; and then he told the servant to bring in some water, and when it came, he poured out a tumbler full, but I do believe it was half wine, and I drank it down, and then I felt, oh, I never can tell how I felt, or what happened after that; but I know more happened, and that more was--was--what I never can tell.”
”Villain, black-hearted villain; who laid his snares for a poor, simple-hearted girl, to work her ruin. I wonder that you ever got away, ever got out of that house. How did you do it?”
”When I came to a little, I ran down stairs as fast as I could go, and he ran after me, and cried, 'Stop her,' and two other women ran out in the hall to do it, but just then the door was opened, and two gentlemen were going out, and I ran right into the arms of one of them, and he carried me clear out, in spite of them, and then the other one said, 'Let her go, she is drunk--now run.' I did run and they hallooed, and then the boys took after me, and, oh, dear, you know the rest.”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.--AGNES.
”All things are pure to those who are pure.”
”Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.”
Perhaps some of my readers have been sufficiently interested to inquire, ”Who is Agnes, and what of her?” Perhaps there may be some, who, like Mrs. McTravers, think she is not a proper character to introduce into a respectable family, coming as she did from a house which gives an air of taint, spoiled, lost, ruined, to every character that is found within its walls. I am aware that there is room for suspicion, but suspicion is not proof. In the case of Athalia, her acknowledged sin is no more proof of moral turpitude than any other act of a deranged mind. A lunatic may kill, yet it is not murder. A drunken husband may beat his loving wife, and love her still. It was not the man who struck the blow, it was the demon Rum! It was not Athalia who lost her virtue, it was the worse than demon who robbed her--intoxicated her--destroyed her reason--enslaved her mind--but he did not, could not, destroy her virtuous, benevolent heart. Her conduct toward Agnes, is alone sufficient to prove this. And if she had known as much as I did of Agnes, that there might be some ground of suspicion against her, it would have made no odds; she would have taken her in and taken care of her in the same way, if she had known that she was a great sinner; that is the true way to work reformation; and then she would have said, ”Go, daughter, and sin no more.”
But she knew nothing against Agnes; even after I had told her of the trunk, she said, all may yet be right. She was unwilling to believe that all was wrong. How triumphantly she met me as I came home in the evening--how a woman does love to triumph over us in a good cause, proving herself what she is in all the purest qualities of the heart,--our superior.
”I told you so,” said Athalia. ”I knew there had been some base deception, some wickedness practiced towards that poor girl to inveigle her into that house. Come up stairs, and you shall hear her story from her own lips; she is quite smart now, and able to sit up and talk, and looks so pretty--she is pretty, and that has been the great cause of her trouble. But she is a good girl; I have heard a good deal about her to-day, besides what she has told me. Phebe and Peter, have both been here, and such a meeting, oh! it would have done your heart good to have been here, and to see these poor blacks' conduct towards this girl, after I had told them the story of her adventures last evening: they hugged her, and kissed her with as much affection as though she had been one of their own; and then Peter went to see the lady where she had been living, at the place he got for her, the next day after your first interview with her, and the lady was terribly alarmed about the poor girl, and so she would not let Peter come back until she had the carriage up, and then she took him in--only to think, such a sweet, nice, pretty lady did not feel herself in the least disgraced to ride with a poor, old, negro wood-sawyer in her fine carriage, to visit a poor sick servant girl. And so she came, and such a time! why, if she had been her own child, she could not have been more affectionate. And then Agnes told us her story, and then I told Mrs. Meltrand, that is her name, about Mrs. De Vrai, and how that same man, who treated Agnes so badly, tried to steal Mrs. De Vrai's little girl, and then she said, 'how singular,' and then of course I said, what is so singular?”
”Ah me, it is a long story, and would not interest you, but I was robbed of a dear little girl, fifteen years ago, in England, by just such a man, in just the same way, but it could not have been this man, his name was Brentnall.”
”Brentnall, why that is my name,” said Agnes.
”Your name, why you never told me that before.”
”No, ma'am, you never asked me, and I did not suppose that you cared to know anything about me, only that I was a good girl, and did your work well, and answered to the name of Agnes.”
True. How little interest we all take in our servants; they come and go and we never know that they have any name but one that is most convenient to call them by, and we take no interest in them, hardly enough to know that they possess souls as precious as our own.
”And so, your name is Brentnall, what was your father's name?”
”I don't know, ma'am, as I ever had any, or mother either.”
”But you must have had both.”
”Oh yes, I suppose I must, to have been born, but I mean I never saw any.”
”Where did you live, and who brought you up?”
”I lived with an uncle, near Belfast, and came over with him and his family, and every one of them died of s.h.i.+p fever on the voyage, and when I landed here in this great city, I was utterly alone, and almost penniless. Oh dear!”