Chapter XVIII

“The world is the book of women.”
— Rousseau.

One Sunday soon after Lamont’s arrest, Hagar expressed a wish to go to church, and was taken by Ida to the Free Chapel, where Dr. Bruce, a popular lecturer, who had a considerable following among free thinkers and others who were not connected with any regular church, gave an interesting discourse on Mormonism. The subject had been suggested by the presence of Elder Spencer in Cincinnati, and Dr. Bruce’s attendance at one of his meetings.

The Doctor denounced the Mormon pretentions judiciously, and a somewhat exciting scene was caused by Spencer’s making an attempt to reply to him. The Elder saw Hagar when leaving the hall, but she avoided him and hurried to the carriage.

When Hagar and Ida returned to Castle Adamant, after the service at Dr. Bruce’s chapel, they were met in the hall by Miss Ross, who, in reply to Ida’s enquiries about the condition of Aunt Clare, said that she had been in her right mind for two or three hours, and asked to see “Kitty.”

“She seems so anxious to see you, Kitty; but the new doctor says it is only a fancy, and she must not be allowed to see anybody at present.”

“I am very glad to hear that Madame Adamanti is better,” Hagar said mechanically. And then, with a wistful look at Miss Ross, and about the room, she added: “Is there no news, nothing from my husband?” There was unsteadiness in her voice as she spoke, and she sat down and wept bitterly when Miss Ross replied indifferently, “No.”

Hagar retired to her room, where Ida presently joined her. She had brushed away her tears, and was making an effort to be cheerful.

“I must really go to our lodgings to-morrow,” she said, her sweet voice still muffled with tears. “There may be letters there for me from my father. I have not heard a word from him, though I have written several times. The world seems dark and hopeless to me, Ida; what would you do if you were in my place? Don’t you think they would let me see my husband?”

“Gracious, no! These are war times, you know, and Dr. Cavin says the hebbus carcass act has been suspended, so they can arrest and put in jail whoever they like. But there’s no use o’ your fretting about Char—about your husband, cos, he’s already got another wife, and you’re in the fix of one of them girls Dr. Bruce was telling about. You’re only a ‘Hagar,’ like the rest of us.”

Hagar was startled by these strange words, and quite unable to understand them. She remembered that Dr. Bruce had spoken of the Biblical Hagar, and had a faint idea of the drift of his remarks. But her mind had been so preoccupied with her troubles, that she had not been able to follow the Doctor’s thoughts. Ida spoke in a tone of heartless raillery which indicated that she was far more callous than was really the case. She knelt in an easy chair, resting her elbows on the cushioned back and her chin in her palms. There she crouched watching her frightened companion grow pale. An amused smile of spiteful satisfaction was playing about her mouth. She was wondering what “Kitty” would say.

“My husband has another wife?” Hagar asked with some effort, after a moment’s pause. Ida nodded maliciously.

“How do you know that? What is the meaning of all this strange acting that is going on here? Where have you known my husband?”

“At New Orleans. He was always the handsomest Knight of the Carnival.”

“Why, Ida, how can you talk so? My husband resides at Boston, and is a minister of the Gospel. You are cruel to talk like this to me,” said poor Hagar, her heart already half mistrustful.

“You’re a little fool, Kitty. Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Ida, with palpable artifice, and going to Hagar to embrace her. “Do you mean to tell me seriously that you believe you are Charley Lamont’s wife?”

“‘Charley Lamont?’ I do not know such a person—my husband’s name is Smiles—the Reverend Benjamin T. Smiles.”

Ida laughed so uproariously in response to this that Hagar could not help smiling as she said innocently:—

“You think the name so funny, then?”

“I was wondering if the ‘T’ was for tears, for Charley always was the most terrific sport, and I reckon he’s had more tears shed over him than any man out of jail, an’ now he’s in, too. But, see here, Kitty, let’s understand each other.”

“I wish I could understand you, Ida; but indeed, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Well, look here; ye didn’t run away from your real husband, Smiles, to come here with Charley Lamont, did ye?”

“You know I came here with my husband. Whom do you mean by Charley Lamont?” Hagar was struggling between impatience, uncertainty, and dread. She scarcely knew what to say, but looked as puzzled as she felt.

“That was him you came here with, who was taken away by old Abe’s soldiers. So you see I’m right, he’s the Knight of the Carnival, and the husband of one of the richest and prettiest women in New Orleans, and what’s more, he’s got two children.”

The words of the officer who arrested Lamont now rung in Hagar’s ears, and her first sense of the truth oppressed her.

“There must be some mistake!” she said, trying to control her emotion, and seizing Ida by the arm. “You are trying to deceive and alarm me, Ida. Confess that it is so. Even if my husband is a rebel spy, and if he bears a different name from that I knew him by, he has no other wife. Come, Ida, tell me you are only joking—”

“Well, you can ask Aunt Clare when she is well enough. I’ve only told you the truth for your own good.”

Hagar did not weep. Clasping her hands over her face, she said, faintly, “Oh, what shall I do!” She reeled for an instant, but by an effort kept her feet and went unsteadily towards the door, near which, on a table, were her bonnet and wraps just as she had left them on entering. The sight of them seemed to revive her. Hurriedly reassuming them, she rushed down the stairs and out into the street before Ida could give an alarm. The latter called Miss Ross, and after a consultation, they decided, as there was no doctor in the house, they ought to tell Aunt Clare.

The courtesan was but little better than on the day she was so suddenly stricken down by her old malady. In her delirium she had said nothing in relation to Hagar to create distrust in the suspicious minds about her; but as soon as she recovered consciousness she had asked about the girl “Kitty,” with business-like solicitude, and given orders that she must not be introduced to any of the frequenters of the house. She had afterwards fallen into a stupor from which it was not supposed she would rally; but to-day she was better again, and had been saying that she was anxious to see Kitty, so that her attendants had reason to dread the shock the girl’s escape might give her.

Miss Ross undertook the delicate mission, however. She was a woman of a type that is considered beautiful in some parts of the Orient. Of a dark, opaque complexion, with short blue-black curls clustered about her head, she might have been taken by a casual observer, for a mulatto. She was, however, pure Creole, and possessed of personal graces and accomplishments which might have rendered her acceptable in any society.

She softly approached the bedside of Lady Clare, whose illness had already produced a significant change in her appearance, and, taking up the thin hand that lay out on the silk counterpane, said,

“You have had a nice nap, Aunt Clare? I hope you feel a little better?”

“No, Belle,” replied Madame Adamanti in a whisper.

“But I am a little stronger, I think, and while I am so I want to arrange my affairs as well as possible, for I am going to die.”

“Don’t talk like that; it’s foolish. You will be as well as ever in a day or two, I’m sure.”

Miss Ross was studying how to broach the subject of the run-away girl when Lady Clare continued:—

“You remember, Belle, I once told you that I had a child, a daughter.”

“Yes, the one you abandoned at Cleveland, when you ran away with the Mormons.”

“Well, I have seen her: she is still alive.”

Belle was so surprised that she sprang to her feet in the firm conviction that her mistress was drifting away again into the dreary realms of delirium.

“You needn’t be afraid, I was never more sound in my reason than at the present moment. The girl brought here the other night by Charles Lamont is my daughter.”

“Impossible! He told me he got her in Canada.”

“His treachery has brought her to me, but no matter about that, it shall not bring her to any further harm if I can prevent it. To leave no doubt in the matter I want you to go at once and see Lamont. I have a pass to the military prison. Tell him that for special reasons, valuable to him as well as to me, I want to know all the facts he can give about the girl’s history, her parentage, age and every detail he can supply. Tell him I am ill or I should have come myself. In the pocket of the dress I had on the night he was here you will find a card he gave me. On it is the address of the lodgings where all the girl’s luggage and some property belonging to Lamont, were left. Oh! What would I give, Belle, for an hour’s conversation this day with some honest man, who would think nothing of what I am, but hear my confession, and only regard me as what I might have been. I must find somebody to take care of that poor girl. And I suppose some conceited hypocrite of a lawyer is my only alternative.”

“Why don’t you send for a priest? That’s what I’d do if I were in your frame of mind,” said Miss Ross rather absently, dreading more than ever the shock to her mistress when she should learn of Kitty’s flight.

“No, no; I don’t want one of those gentry with their sanctimonious deceit. He would probably offer me absolution if I would leave him my fortune. When we approach death, no matter what our lives have been, we crave for the presence of some one whose record is such as our better conscience approves. Ours is the bitterest fate of all, Belle; the most vile, the most repulsive. We may get beyond shame, but we sink deeper and deeper into the miseries of a living death, and go about as mere moving corpses for years before we reach the grave. I am not sorry I am nearing the end. I am just thirty-seven years old, but I am treble that in suffering and sin. As the last act in my tragedy, I was conniving at the shame of my own child!... But there, I must let you go. And yet, something tells me I should send for somebody to whose care I can leave the girl. There is not one among the mass of men I know whom I would trust with such a commission. I must see the poor child, too, and talk with her before I die. She can never know who or what I was. For whom shall I send, Belle? I may not feel so well another day. I have not a moment to lose.” “I think you ought to send for a priest; no better man than my confessor, Father O’Rouke, could be found in Cincinnati; or else for a sister of charity.”

“That my child may be robbed, and forced into a nunnery? I may as well consign her to the Mormons at once!”

“You are prejudiced, Aunt Clare,” said Miss Ross, who was brought up in the Roman faith, educated in a convent, and now counted among her friends a handsome young priest of Erin, who often gave her absolution.

“I confess I am so, but not without good reason, as you know. No priests or nuns for me. I know what I’ll do, I will send for one who is despised by the priests as I despise them. Bring my portfolio and write me a note to that Dr. Bruce of the Free Chapel. I believe that he is a man of more merit than pretence. He has a wife and children whom he loves and honors, and all the Churchmen accuse him of being too partial to publicans and sinners. The other day the priests of all sects wanted to mob him because he prayed beside the grave of a poor wretch who died in a house like this. He will neither be afraid to come here, nor to undertake my commission.”

Belle had brought the portfolio and was waiting at the bedside.

“What shall I say?”

The invalid dictated the following brief note, which Belle wrote in a graceful hand.

To DOCTOR BRUCE, The Free Chapel, Cincinnati: Sir: You will pardon a
poor outcast for taking the liberty to send for you. She does so
because she sorely needs a friend. You will know who I am by the name
at the bottom of this. It is, of course, not my real name. I am dying.
Shall I see you at once? CLARE ADAMANTI.

At the bottom Belle added the address, and the words “written by her friend Belle.”

The excitement caused by the unusual activity of her mind had considerably exhausted Lady Clare. But her resolution conquered, and after a brief spell of coughing, she directed Belle to go at once on her errand and to send “Kitty” to her. Belle only said “Yes dear,” and was gone, deeming explanations inexpedient.

It was now about the middle of the afternoon, and Belle knew it would require the rest of the day to make the circuit marked out for her. The carriage was waiting, so she only tarried long enough to tell Ida not to let Aunt Clare know about Kitty’s absence.

Various projects had begun to form in Belle’s mind even before she quitted her mistress’ room. Was it really likely that Lady Clare would die soon? She remembered a former promise of the courtesan’s, to leave her a handsome competence. Would that promise ever be fulfilled, or was she now determined to leave all to her own child?

“In this life,” she mused, “trickery is my only weapon. If I have wit I must use it. The girl, no matter who she is, must take care of herself. It is certain she is Clare’s child, for she is too shrewd to blunder there. A very good reason, then, why she must never see her again. A week. She said she could not live a week. Well, Mike and I can do much in a week. If the girl has disappeared, and nothing is heard of her, she will easily believe that she has gone back to her friends. She’s got at least $150,000, and it should all be mine. But the first thing I must do is to see Mike.”

She told the coachman to stop at her drug store.

“Yes,” she said, continuing her cogitations, “Mike will know just what to do. He has often said that Lady Clare ought to do something handsome by me. I think I’ll destroy this now.” Here she took the note directed to Dr. Bruce, from her pocket. “But perhaps I better let Mike see it,” she went on after she had torn the envelope slightly, “for it may be best to send it after all.” She put it back into her pocket, and told the coachman to drive faster.

The drug store at which the carriage presently stopped was not in the business portion of the city.

The only other place of business in the vicinity was a grocery, which was closed. The wind was blowing bleakly so that most people were in- doors. The next building but one on the south side of the drug store was a Romish church built of grey-stone, in a mixed and ornate style of architecture, at that time one of the most solid looking places of worship in the city.

The owner of the drug store, being a good Catholic, was allowed to use the alley which ran through from the rear of the church to the other street for bringing in goods, and had a door at the side of his building for that purpose. It was, moreover, used as an entrance to the parochial school and was convenient for women who did not wish their husbands to know they went to confession, and others who wanted to seek priestly society or counsel without exciting suspicion.

Belle passed through the drug store and out at the side door. As she approached the door of the parsonage she was met by a man who glanced at her and hurried on. Father O’Rouke was alone and unfeignedly glad to see her. He bestowed rather more than a fatherly kiss on her pouting lips, and clasped her in an embrace that suggested the lover rather than the anchorite. Father O’Rouke was, no doubt, a bad specimen of his kind, if it is to be accounted bad to do and be exactly the opposite of all that one pretends, all that he vows, and all that is commonly accepted as right. To the eye he was a typical priest, about thirty-five.

Belle was too much occupied with her business projects to waste much time with his endearments, and told him at once what had brought her.

“Let me see the note,” said O’Rouke, “of course it can’t go to the heretic: that won’t do, but in case we want to send it—well, what’s the matter?”

“I’ve lost the note!” cried the woman.

“Nonsense! look again.”

She looked in vain, in her pocket, and her muff; and finally the florid Michael O’Rouke, priest and teacher, went out and searched along the alley and in the drug store, and asked Mr. Cresser, the clerk, to be good enough to look in the carriage and see if the lady had dropped it there, telling him it was a most important document.

When Belle alighted from the carriage the letter had dropped under her feet and had been blown against the curbstone on the other side of the street. It was picked up by the man she met in the alley, who, on reading the address, decided to deliver the stray missive, as he had to pass the Free Chapel on his way home.

O’Rouke confessed that there was a bare possibility that, if she had dropped the note in the street, somebody might pick it up and take it to its destination. But he thought the chance very remote, and said that he would himself undertake to intercept the heretic even though he should receive it. Belle then set out for the military prison where quite a number of the “boys in grey” were already in durance vile. Her last words to the priest were:

“For goodness sake, Mike, don’t let that man go to Castle Adamant, even if you have to throttle him.”

“He’ll not go there, darling. Lave that to me. It’s my duty to protect the innocent, and I’ll do it, darling, I’ll do it ivery toime.”

Moved by a righteous indignation, he was promptly on his way to Dr. Bruce’s house, having arranged with Belle to call at the parsonage on her way home to compare notes.

The Free Chapel was only a few squares away, and the Doctor’s home was situated in the lot adjoining. The priest’s adamantine assurance wavered slightly as he approached the door of this cottage, where dwelt a man whom he regarded with the utmost repugnance. But he walked deliberately up the steps wondering if his visit was observed by any of his own flock, knocked gently, and in a moment the door was opened by a bright sunny-headed little boy of probably six years.

“Is Dr. Bruce at home, little man?” asked O’Rouke.

“Yes, sir,” the child replied, and then, running to the open door of an adjoining room, he said, “It’s a gentleman to see you father.”

Dr. Bruce was just going out. He had on his overcoat, and carried his hat and walking stick in his hand.

“You will pardon me, doctor,” said O’Rouke blandly, “I have called on very important private business.”

“Will you walk in, I am at your service,” replied Dr. Bruce, throwing open a door on the opposite side of the hall, and beckoning him to enter.

They were alone in a neat and warm little drawing room, and O’Rouke spoke to the point at once. The priest, being on his good behavior, had unconsciously dropped his brogue.

“My name is O’Rouke, I’m a Catholic priest. A parishioner of mine tells me that a note was sent to you to-day, merely to annoy you, by a woman of the town (in view, no doubt, of your late condescension in the case of one of her class), and the matter coming to my notice, I thought it no more than justice to you that I should warn you of the trick.”

The doctor was puzzled. The priest’s ready invention had every appearance of being genuine. He took a few seconds to reflect before he answered.

“Yes, I have received such a note, and was just going in answer to the summons.”

“Then I’m heartily glad, Doctor, that I’m in time to save you from the imposition.”

“I am grateful to you Mr. O’Rouke, so far, but I must not decide too suddenly; the woman says she’s dying.”

“All trash and make-believe. With a foul gang of wretches in a drunken orgie they mean to laugh you to scorn on the holy Sabbath day. But,” he continued in a haughty voice, and rising to go, “I have performed what I considered a duty, though an unpleasant one. It is for you to do as you see fit. Forewarned is forearmed. Good day, sir.”

“One moment, Mr. O’Rouke,” said Dr. Bruce with gentle dignity. O’Rouke had missed his play. With a man like Dr. Bruce, common honesty might always win, whereas either bluff or finesse would be sure to fail, for he could readily fathom them. He guessed at once that the priest had some hidden motive in seeking to prevent his going to the address mentioned in the note.

“It seems the note was lost in the road—did your informant say who was the bearer of it?”

“Now yer afther cross-questioning me, so I’ve done wid ye,” said the priest impetuously and with full brogue. “Its plain you think there’s something wrong about my story!”

“Not in the least, Mr. O’Rouke, I was merely guarding against what might possibly be inaccuracy on the part of your informant, for I should rather risk the assault you say is in store for me, than fail in my duty to a fellow creature.”

Smelling defeat the priest moderated his petulance, and answered calmly:—“Well, then, the bearer was a servant in the house of Clara Adamanti who heard the contents of the note and the plot in connection with it, and came to me for my advice. She lost the note, but I suspected it might find its way to you and came here to warn you of the trap, thinking you would at least thank me for my trouble, and yourself be saved from an outrage.”

“I thank you most heartily, Mr. O’Rouke, and shall certainly not expose myself to such a danger after your friendly notice.”

As there was nothing more to be said O’Rouke withdrew, thoroughly appreciating the equivocal nature of the doctor’s final words.

It was after nightfall when Belle again alighted at the parsonage. O’Rouke was ready to receive her. But she was so much troubled by the fact that the letter had been delivered that she considered all else as useless, and merely said that Lamont’s account of the girl was exactly what Lady Clare had told her years ago, and that the girl was not and had not been at the lodgings in Vine street.

“I suspect,” said O’Rouke, “that Bruce has gone to Lady Clare’s. Your dropping that note has spoiled everything! If you had only had time to get a few dare-devils there to receive him! But it’s too late for that now; the mischief’s done. Niver mind, Belle, darlin’. You can generally count on the plans of the heretical divils goin’ awry. And take note that while there’s only one thing in your way, all else is in your favor. Be off now, child, be off, an’ moind you, don’t forget your bades!”