Richard Vandermarck Part 26

"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have heard anything about last summer?"

"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once this winter."

"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"

"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but his poverty."

"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly.

"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.

"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be quite sure of _that_."

"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short, sarcastic laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.

"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as good as you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as if she had not patience for the other subject.

"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not seen for over sixteen years."

"Incredible!"

"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an exchange of letters, within these three months past."

"Ah!"

"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed by his lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I have come up to tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed prospects."

"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a chilling voice.

"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh. "I see nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial. She is utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not even a shelter for her head."

"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in her voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not tell me, after what has pa.s.sed, you still feel that you are bound to her--"

"_Bound!_" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange in him, as, pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His back was toward me. She was so absorbed she did not see me as I darted past the folding-doors into the hall. As I flew panting up to my own room, I remember one feeling above all others, the first feeling of affection toward the house that I had ever had. It was mine no longer, my home never again; I had no right to stay in it a moment: my own room was not mine any more--the room where I had learned to pray, and to try to lead a good life--the room where I had lain when I was so near to death--the room where Sister Madeline had led me to such peaceful, quiet thoughts.

I had but one wish now, not to see Richard, to escape Sophie, to get away forever from this house to which I had no right. I pulled down my hat and my street things, and dressed so quickly, that I had slipped down the stairs, and out into the street, before they had ceased talking in the parlor. I heard their voices, very low, as I pa.s.sed through the hall. I fully meant never to come back to the house again--not to be turned out.

My heart swelled as the door closed behind me. It was dreadful not to have a home. I was so unused to being in the street alone, that I felt frightened when I reached the cars and stopped them.

I was going to Sister Madeline. She would take me, and keep me, and teach me where to live, and how. I was a little confused, and got out at the wrong street, and had to walk several blocks before I reached the house.

The servant at the door met me with an answer that made me wonder whether there were anything else to happen to me on that day.

Sister Madeline had been called away--had gone on a long journey--something about the illness of her brother; and I must not come inside the door, for a contagious disease was raging, and the orders were strict that no one be admitted. I had walked so fast, and in such excitement of feeling, that I was weak and faint when I turned to go down the steps. Where should I go? I walked on slowly now, and undecided, for I had no aim.

The clergyman to whom I had gone for direction in matters spiritual, was ill--for two weeks had given up even Lenten duties. Anything--but I could not go home, or rather where home had been. I walked and walked till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself.

But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and frightened too, for people were beginning to look at me.

It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to think how I should get back, on which side must I go to find the cars--where was I, literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very necessary information. In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I had the proper change. Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart actually stood still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right and left, during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very sure of more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not even the money to ride home in the cars.

Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get money, to feel that there is some _dernier ressort_ however hateful to you, is one thing; but to _know_ that you have not a cent--not a prospect of getting one--not a hope of earning one--no means of living--this is suffocation.

This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.

The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty, little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I looked down into the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for and unknown suicides. I could see how it might be inevitable--a sort of pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be overcome when that pressure was put on.

It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.

It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.

You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.

For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had no means of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread. He would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me out to-morrow, if he came: my clothes--were _they_ even mine, or would they be given to me, if they were? This uncle had reproached Uncle Leonard once for what he had done for me. I had even an idea that it was about my mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred. And hard as I had regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown off the mother, and broken her poor heart).

The house in Varick-street would be broken up. What would become of the cook, and Ann Coddle? It would be easier for them to live than for me.

They could get work to do, for they knew how to work, and people would employ them. I--I could do nothing, I had been taught to do nothing. I had never been directed how to hem a handkerchief. I had tried to dust my room one day, and the effort had tired me dreadfully, and did not look very well, as a result. I could not teach. I had been educated in a slipshod way, no one directing anything about it--just what it occurred to the person who had charge of me to put before me.

I had intended to throw myself upon Sister Madeline. But what then? What could she have done for me? I had asked her months before if I could not be a sister, and had been discouraged both by her and by my director. I believe they thought I was too young and too pretty, and, in fact, had no vocation. No doubt they thought I might soon look upon things differently, when my trouble was a little older.

And Richard--I did not give Richard many thoughts that day, for my heart was sore, when I remembered all his words. He had always thought that I was to be rich; perhaps that had made him so long patient with me. He had said I was not clever; he had seemed to be very sorry for me. He might well be. Sophie had asked him if he were still bound to me. I had not heard all his answer, but he had spoken in a tone of scorn. I did not want to think about him.

There was no whither to turn myself for help. And the clergyman, who had been more than kind to me, who had seemed to help me with words and counsel out of heaven,--he was cut off from my succor, and I stood alone--I, who was so dependent, so naturally timid, and so easily mistaken.

It was a dreary hour of my life, that hour that I sat looking over at the water of the pretty placid lake. I don't like to recall it. Some one pa.s.sed by me, gave an exclamation of surprise, and came back hastily. It was Richard. He seemed so glad, and so relieved to see me--and to me it was like Heaven opening; notwithstanding my vindictive thoughts about him, I could have sprung into his arms; I felt protected, safe, the moment he was by me. I tried to speak, and then began to cry.

"I've been looking for you these last two hours," he said, sitting down beside me. "I came up-town to see you, and found you had gone out. I thought you would not be likely to go anywhere but to see Sister Madeline, and there the servant told me you had come this way. I could not find you here, and went back to Varick-street, then was frightened at hearing you had not come back, and returned again to look for you.

What made you stay so long? Something has happened. Tell me what you are crying for."

I had no talent for acting, and not much discretion when I was excited; and he found out very soon that I knew what had befallen me. (I think he believed that Sophie had told me of it.)

"Were you very much surprised?" he said. "Had you supposed that you would be his heiress?"

"Why, no. I had not thought anything about it. I am afraid I have not thought much about anything this winter. I must have been very ungrateful, as well as childish, for I never have felt as if it were fortunate that I had a home, and as much money as I wanted. I did not care anything about being rich, you know--ever."

"No, I know you did not. I was sure you would have been satisfied with a very moderate provision."

"Oh, Richard," I cried, clasping my hands together, "if he had left me a little--just a little--just a few hundred dollars, when he had so much, to have kept me from having to work, when I don't know how to work, and am such a child."

"Work!" he exclaimed, looking down at me as if I were something so exquisite and so precious, that the very thought was profanation.

"Work! no, Pauline, you shall not have to work."

"But what can I do?" I said, "I have nothing--and you know it; not a shelter; not the money to pay for my breakfast to-morrow morning. Not a person to whom I have a right to go for help; not a human being who is bound to care for me. Oh, I don't care what becomes of me; I wish that it were time for me to die."

Richard got up, and paced up and down the little platform with an absorbed look.

"It was so strange," I went on, "when he seemed this winter to take a little notice of me, and to want to have me near him. I really almost thought he cared for me. And when I was so ill last Fall, don't you remember how often he used to come up to my room?"

"I remember--yes. It is all very strange."

"And some days early in the winter, when I could scarcely speak at table, I was so unhappy, he would look at me so long, and seem to think.

And then would be very kind and gentle afterward, and do something to show he liked me--give me money, you know, as he always did."