A Changed Heart: A Novel

"Mrs. Butterby said you sent for me," Miss Wade remarked, taking the chair, and looking with a certain eagerness in her great eyes. "You spoke to the manager, I suppose?"

Miss Johnston, who had seated herself on a wooden footstool, did not look up to meet that eager, anxious gaze.

"Yes," she said, "but, I am sorry to say, I have been disappointed. The company was full, he said, and he wanted no more novices. He would not have taken me, had it not been at the earnest solicitation of a friend, and there was no room or need for any more."

The sullen look that had left Miss Wade's face for a moment returned, and a dark gloom with it. She did not speak; she sat with her brows drawn into a moody form, staring at the ugly little black stove.

"A friend of mine, though," the actress went on, "who has considerable influence, has promised to try and get you a situation in some other theater. I told him you would certainly be successful, and rise rapidly in the profession. I know you possess all the elements of a splendid tragic actress."

If we might judge by the darkly-passionate face and fiercely-smoldering eyes, the young woman who sat so gloomily staring straight before her, was capable of acting a tragedy in real life, quite as fast as on the stage. There was a certain recklessness about her, that might break out at any moment, and which told fate and poverty had goaded her on to desperation. When she spoke, her words showed she had neither heard nor heeded the actress's last remark.

"And so goes my last hope," she said, with slow, desperate bitterness; "the last hope of being anything but a poor, starved, beggarly drudge all the days of my life! I am a fool to feel disappointed. I might know well enough by this time, that there is nothing but disappointment for such a wretch as I!"

The reckless bitterness of this speech jarred painfully on the hearer's nerves. Miss Johnston looked at her half-pityingly.

"There is no need to despair," she quietly said; "the friend of whom I have spoken will be successful, and I am certain you will be a great actress yet. With me it is different. I will never rise above mediocrity."

"You don't seem to care much," said Miss Wade, looking at her pale, still face.

"I don't," said the actress, in the same quiet way.

"Have you no ambition at all, then?"

"No!"

She did not say it indifferently, but in a tone of hard endurance. Miss Wade's large eyes were fixed curiously on her face.

"I think," she said, "you have seen a great deal of trouble, and that it has crushed the ambition out of you. You were never born to be one of Mrs. Butterby's lodgers! Pardon me if I am impertinent."

"You are not," the actress said, neither denying nor acknowledging the charge. "Whatever I once was, I am Mrs. Butterby's lodger now, and a poor actress, who must sew the spangles on her own dress."

She took off the bed a short pink gauze skirt, and a bunch of tinsel braid, and began the womanly work of sewing, with her swift fingers.

"Are you to wear that to-night?" asked Miss Wade.

"Yes; it is the dress of a flower-girl."

"What is the play?"

"I forget the name," said the actress, indifferently; "it is a French vaudeville, written expressly for us. I am Ninon, a flower-girl, with two or three songs to sing. Will you come?"

"Thank you, I should like to go. It keeps me from thinking for a few hours, and that in itself is a blessing. What a miserable, worthless piece of business life is! I think I shall buy twenty cents worth of laudanum, some of these days, in some apothecary-shop, and put an end to it altogether."

The jarring, reckless tone had returned, and was painful to hear. The actress sewed, steadily on, replying not.

"It is well enough for those girls," Miss Wade said; "those rough, noisy, factory girls, brawny arms, and souls that never rise above a beau or silk dresses; but for me and for you, who were born ladies – it is enough to drive us mad! Look at me!" she cried, rising to her feet; "look at me, Miss Johnston! Do I look like one born for a drudge? Do I look like the women who fill this house?"

Miss Johnston looked up at the speaker, doing a little private theatrical tragedy, with her pale, quiet face, unmoved. Perhaps she had grown so used to tragedy that it had become stale and wearisome to her; and the regal figure drawn up to its full height, the white face, and flaring eyes, disturb her no more in her poor room, than Lady Macbeth, in black velvet, with blood on her hands, did on the theatrical boards.

"No," she said, "you are not at all like the factory-hands, Miss Wade. I never doubted you were born a lady."

"And a lady, rich and happy, flattered and courted, I should have been yet, but for the villainy of a man. My curse upon him, whether he be living or dead."

She began pacing up and down the floor, like any other tragedy-queen. Miss Johnston, finding it too dark to sew, arose, lit a candle, stood it on a wooden box that did service for a table, and composedly pursued her work.

"How was it?" she asked; "is it long ago?"

"Long!" exclaimed Miss Wade; "it seems hundreds of years ago; though I suppose scarcely seven have really passed since he fled, taking all he possessed with him, and leaving my mother and I to beg, or starve, or die, if we pleased. Of all the villains Heaven ever suffered to pollute this earth, I think Philip Henderson was the worst!"

"Philip Henderson!" Miss Johnston repeated, looking up from her work; "was that the name of the man who defrauded you?"

"He was my step-father – the villain! My own father I do not recollect – he died in my infancy, leaving my mother wealthy – the possessor of half a million nearly. She had married this man Henderson before I was three years old; and I remember how pleased I was when he first came, with the little baby-sister he brought me – for he was a widower with a child not two years old. Shortly after my mother's second marriage, we left Rochester, where I was born. Mr. Henderson purchased, with my mother's money, of course, for he had none of his own, a magnificent place up at Yonkers – a house like a castle, and magnificent grounds. Everything was in keeping; the furniture, pictures, and plate superb; a whole retinue of servants; the fastest horses and finest carriages in the country. It is like a dream of fairy-land to me now to look back upon. Olly and I (his daughter's name was Olive), as we grew up, had a governess, and masters in the house, and played in bright silk dresses among the pastures, and fountains, and graperies of our palace-like home. The place was filled with company all the summer through – nothing but balls and soirees, and dressing and dancing, and fetes champetre; and in the winter, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson came down to the city, leaving us in charge of the housekeeper and governess. It is a very pleasant thing, no doubt, spending money as freely as if it were water; but, unfortunately, even half a million of dollars will not last forever. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, and their two daughters – for I passed as his child, too, and scarcely knew the difference myself – were all the fashion for nearly ten years, and then the change began to come. I was only thirteen, and not old enough to understand the stormy scenes between Henderson and my mother – her passionate reproaches of his folly and extravagance, his angry recrimination, and the ominous whisperings of the servants. Suddenly the crash came – Henderson had fled, taking Olly with him, and the few thousands that yet remained of our princely fortune. He was over head and ears in debt; the creditors seized everything – house, furniture, plate, and all – and my mother and I were penniless. Miss Johnston, the shock killed her. She had always been frail and delicate, and she never held up her head after. She was buried before a month passed; and I, at the age of thirteen, was alone in the world, and a pauper. But a child of that age cannot realize misery as we can in after-years. I was fully conscious of present discomfort, but of the future I never thought. My mother had left Yonkers immediately after the creditors' seizure, too keenly sensitive to remain a beggar where she had once reigned a queen, and came here to the city. She came here to an old servant of hers, to whom she had been a kind friend in other days, and the woman did not forget it. She was comfortable enough with her husband and two children, and she kept me and sent me to learn the business I now work at. I remained with her nearly six years, realizing more and more every day what I had lost in losing wealth. She is dead now. Her husband is married again and gone to California, and I am here, the most miserable creature, I believe, in all this great desert of a city."

She had been walking up and down all the time, this impetuous Miss Wade, with rapid, excited steps, speaking in a rapid, excited voice, a fierce light flaring in her large angry eyes. The actress had finished her work; it lay on her lap now, her quiet hands folded over it, her quiet eyes following the passionate speaker.

"Wade, I suppose," was her first remark, "was your own father's name. When did you adopt it?"

"Only when I came here. The name of Henderson had long been odious to me, but the family I lived with was too accustomed to it to change."

"And have you never heard from this man Henderson or his daughter since?"

"I have heard of them, which is as good; and, thank God! retribution has found them out! They are both dead – he committed a forgery, and shot himself to escape the consequences; and Olly – she was always a miserable, puling, sickly thing – died in a hospital. They have been made an example of, thank Heaven! as they deserved to be."

She uttered the impious thanksgiving with a fierce joy that made the actress recoil. But her mood changed a second after; she stopped in her walk, the darkly-sullen look settling on her face again, and stared blankly at the flaring candle, dripping tears of fat over the candlestick. So long she stood that the actress rose and began folding up the flower-girl's dresses, preparatory to starting for the theater.

"Are you going?" Miss Wade asked, coming out of her moody reverie.

"Yes, when I have had a cup of tea – it is drawing down stairs at Mrs. Butterby's fire. Will you not take another?"

"No, thank you; I can't eat. I will wait here while you take it."

There was a newspaper on the bed. Miss Wade took it, and sat down to read whilst she waited. The actress left the room, returning a moment or two after, with a small snub-nosed teapot and a plate of buttered toast. She was standing at a little open pantry pouring out the tea, when she suddenly laid down the teapot, and turned round to look at her companion. It was not an exclamation Miss Wade had uttered, it was a sort of cry; and she was holding the paper before her, staring at it in blank amaze.

"What is the matter?" Miss Johnston inquired, in her calm voice.

Miss Wade looked up, a sudden and strange flush passing over her colorless face.

"Nothing," she said, slowly. "That is – I mean I saw the – the death of a person I knew, in this paper."

She held it up before her face, and sat there while the actress drank her tea and ate her toast, never moving or stirring. Miss Johnston left the pantry, put on her bonnet and shawl, and took up her bundle as if to go.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Wade," she said, "but it is time for us to go."

Miss Wade arose, with the paper still in her hand. Two bright spots, all unusual there, and which strong excitement alone could bring, burned on either cheek, and a strange dusky fire shone in her eyes.

"I do not think I will go to the theater to-night, Miss Johnston," she said. "My head aches. I will take this paper, if you will let me, and read it in my room for a little while, and then go to bed."

The actress assented, looking at her curiously, and Miss Wade passed down the dark stairs to her own room. There was a lamp on the table, which she lit, then she locked the door; and with that same red spot on each cheek, and that same bright light in each eye, sat down with the paper to read. But she only read one little paragraph among the advertisements, and that she read over and over, and over again. The paper was the Montreal True Witness, some two or three weeks old, and the paragraph ran thus:

"Information Wanted. – Of Philip Henderson or his heirs. When last heard from he was in New York, but is supposed to have gone to Canada. He or his descendants will hear of something to their great advantage by applying to John Darcy, Barrister-at-Law, Speckport."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE HEIRESS OF REDMON

It is three days by steamer and rail-cars from New York to Speckport; but as steam never traveled half as fast as story-tellers, we are back there in three seconds. Dear, foggy Speckport, I salute thee!

In a grimy office, its floor freshly sprinkled, its windows open to admit the March-morning sunshine, in a leathern-covered armchair, before a littered table, Mr. Darcy, barrister-at-law, sits reading the morning paper. It is the "Daily Snorter," and pitches savagely into the "Weekly Spouter," whose editor and proprietor, under the sarcastic title of "Mickey," it mildly insinuates is an ignorant, blundering, bog-trotting ignoramus, who ought still to be in the wilds of Connemara planting potatoes, instead of undermining the liberty of this beloved province, and trampling the laws of society under his ruthless feet, by asserting, as he did yesterday, that a distinguished member of the Smasher party had been found lying drunk in Golden Row, and conveyed in that unhappy state to his residence in that aristocratic street, instead of to the watch-house, as he should. Much more than this the "Daily Snorter," the pet organ of the Smasher party, had to say, and the anathemas it fulminated against "that filthy sheet," the "Spouter," and its vulgar, blockheaded, addle-pated editor, was blood-curdling to peruse. Mr. Darcy was deep in it when the office door opened, and Mr. Val Blake lounged carelessly in. Mr. Darcy looked up with a nod and a laugh.

"Good morning, Blake! Fine day, isn't it? I am just reading this eulogy the 'Snorter' gives you."

"Yes," said Mr. Blake, mounting the back of a chair as if it were the back of a horse, and looking the picture of calm serenity. "Severe, is it? Who do you suppose I had a letter from last night?"

"How should I know?"

"You won't faint, will you? It was from Charley Marsh!"

Mr. Darcy dropped the "Snorter," and stared.

"Char – ley Marsh! It's not possible, Blake?"

"Yes, it is. I am on my way to Cottage Street at this present writing, to tell his mother."

"Well, this is an astonisher! And where is the boy?"

"You'd never guess. A captain in the Southern army."

"You don't say so! How did he ever get there?"

"You see," said Val, "it's a long letter, and he explains everything. After he broke jail that time (of course, Turnbull helped him off), he skulked in the woods for two or three weeks, visited occasionally by a friend (Turnbull again), and through him heard of Nathalie's death. At last, he got the chance of a blockade-runner. The 'Stonewall Jackson' was leaving here, and he got on board, ran the blockade, and found himself in Dixie. There he was offered a captainship, if he would stay and fight a little. He accepted, and that's the whole story. I must tell the mother. It will do her more good than fifty novels and fifty thousand blue pills. Jo went into hysterics of delight when she heard it at breakfast, and I left her kicking when I came away."

"Does he say anything at all about the murder?"

"Oh, yes. I forgot that. He wants to know if Cherrie has turned up yet, and says he may thank her for all his trouble. He was up at Redmon that night to meet her. She had promised to elope with him, but she never came. He protests his innocence of the deed, and I believe him."

"Humph!" said Mr. Darcy, reflectingly. "It is most singular Cherrie does not turn up. I dare say she could throw light on the subject, if she chose."

"I don't despair, yet," said Val. "I'll find her before I stop, if she's above ground. No news yet, I suppose, from the heirs of Redmon?"

"None; and I am sick and tired of advertising. Not a New York or Canadian paper I have not tried, and all alike unsuccessfully. I believe the man's dead, and it's of no use."

"Well," said Mr. Blake, dismounting from the chair, "I'm off. I must get back to the office after I've seen Mrs. Marsh, and give the 'Snorter' such a flailing as it won't get over for a month of Sundays."

Off went Mr. Blake like a long-legged steam-engine; and Mr. Darcy's office boy entered with a handful of letters from the post-office. The lawyer, laying down his paper, began to break the envelopes and read. The first three were business communications, brief and legal, in big buff envelopes. The fourth bore a different aspect. It was considerably stouter. The envelope was white; the writing, a lady's delicate spidery tracery; the postmark New York. The lawyer surveyed it for a moment in grave surprise, then broke it open and began to read. The letter was a long one – three sheets of note-paper closely written; and before he had got to the end of the first, Mr. Darcy, with a sort of shout of astonishment, began at the beginning again. Once, twice, three times, and Mr. Darcy perused the letter; and then rising, with the rest unopened, began pacing up and down the floor. The windows of the office faced the street, and, glancing out, he saw Mr. Blake striding past presently, as if shod with seven-league boots. Mr. Darcy put his head out of the window and hailed him.

"Hallo, Blake! Come up here a moment, will you?"

Mr. Blake looked up, ran up-stairs, and entered the office.

"You'll have to be quick, Mr. Darcy," he said. "Time's precious this morning, and my conscience is uneasy until I give the 'Snorter' fits. Anything up?"

"Yes. The heir of Redmon has turned up at last!"

"By Jove!" cried Val, "you don't say so? Where is he?"

"It's not a he. I should have said the heiress of Redmon has come to light. I have had a letter from Philip Henderson's daughter this morning."

"And where's Philip himself?"

"Where Heaven pleases. The man's dead, and has been these three years. No wonder he never answered our advertisements."

"But it is a wonder this daughter of his did not?"

"She never heard it until the day before she wrote, and then by the merest chance, she says. She is very poor, I fancy, though she does not exactly say so, and without the means to come on here."

"Where is she?"

"In New York. Mrs. Leroy told me her brother resided in Yonkers, with his wife and two daughters, she believed, and the writer of this letter corroborates that statement. They did live in Yonkers, she says, and were in affluent circumstances for a number of years, until she, the writer, was thirteen years old, when they became involved in debt, and everything was seized by the creditors. Henderson, the father, went to Canada. Mrs. Leroy told me she heard he had gone there, but they never held any correspondence. He went to Canada and died there about three years ago. The youngest daughter died about the same time, and the mother shortly after their loss of fortune. The writer of this letter, then, is the only survivor of the family, and the rightful heiress of Mrs. Leroy's fortune. She speaks of Mrs. Leroy, too; says her father had an only sister, who married a New York Jew of that name, for which low alliance, her father ever afterwards refused to have anything to do with her. She refers me to several persons in Yonkers, who can confirm her story, if necessary; though, as she has not been there since she was a child of thirteen, and is now a young lady of twenty, they would hardly be able to identify her. She works for her living, she says – as a teacher, I presume – and tells me to address my reply to 'Station G, Broadway.' Her story bears truth on the face of it, I think. Here is the letter – read it."

Mr. Blake took the lady-like epistle, and, apparently forgetful of his late haste, sat down and perused it from the date "New York, March 7th, 1862," to the signature, "Yours respectfully, Olive W. Henderson." He laid it down with a thoughtful face.

"Her statement is frank and clear, and coincides in every particular with what Mrs. Leroy told you. I don't think there is any deception, but you had better write to Yonkers and ascertain."

"I shall do so: and if all is right, I will forward money to Miss Henderson to come here at once. I am heartily glad to be rid of the bother at last. What will Speckport say?"

"Ah, what won't it say! It's an ill wind that blows nobody good; and what killed poor Natty Marsh is the making of this girl. I wonder if she's good-looking. I shouldn't mind making up to her myself, if she is."

"You might make down again, then. She wouldn't touch you with a pair of tongs. How did Mrs. Marsh take the news?"

"She cried a little," said Val, turning to go, "and then went back to 'Florinda the Forsaken,' I having disturbed her in the middle of the ninety-eighth chapter."

Nodding familiarly, Mr. Blake took his departure, and Mr. Darcy sat down to write to Station G, Broadway, and to Yonkers.

The very winds of heaven seemed to carry news in Speckport, and before night everybody at all concerned knew that the heiress of Redmon had turned up.

Before the expiration of a fortnight, Mr. Darcy received an answer from Yonkers. Mr. and Mrs. Philip Henderson had resided there with their two daughters some years before, but he had absconded in debt, and his wife had left the place, and died shortly after. Harriet and Olive, they believed, were the names of the children; but they knew nothing whatever of them, whether they were living or dead. Mr. Henderson, they had read in the papers, had died very suddenly in Canada – committed suicide, they believed, but they were not certain.

Mr. Darcy, upon receipt of these letters, forwarded a hundred dollars to Miss Henderson, desiring her to come on without delay to Speckport, and take possession of her property. The hunt for the heirs had given Mr. Darcy considerable trouble, and he was very glad to be rid of the bore. He directed the young lady to come to his house immediately upon landing, instead of a hotel; if she sent him word what day she would come, he would be at the boat to meet her.

Mr. Val Blake, among less noted people, went down to the wharf one Tuesday afternoon, nearly a fortnight after Mr. Darcy had dispatched that last letter containing the hundred dollars, to New York. It was late in March now, a lovely, balmy, June-like day; for March, having come in like a lion, was going peacefully out like a lamb. There was not a shadow of fog in Speckport. The sky was as blue as your eyes, my dear reader – unless your eyes happen to be black – with billowy white clouds sailing like fairy ships through a fairy sea. The soft breezes and warm sunshine rendered fans unnecessary, and the bay was a sheet of sapphire and gold. The wharf, a superb wharf, by the way, and a delightful promenade, was thronged. All the pretty girls in Speckport – and, oh! what a lot of pretty girls there are in Speckport – were there; so were the homely ones, and all the nice young men, and the officers with canes under their arms, staring at the fair Speckportians. Young and old, rich and poor, lined the wharf, sitting down, standing up, and walking about, attracted by the beauty of the evening, and the report that the new heiress was coming in that day's boat.

Mr. Val Blake, with his hands in his trowsers' pockets as usual, and his black Kossuth hat pushed far back on his forehead, not to obstruct his view, also as usual, lounged down through the crowd, nodding right and left, and joined a group near the end of the wharf, of whom Miss Jeannette McGregor, Miss Laura Blair, Miss Catty Clowrie, and Captain Cavendish formed prominent features. Two or three more officers and civilians hovered around, and way was made for Mr. Blake.

"Oh, Mr. Blake, do you suppose we'll know her when she lands?" eagerly inquired Miss McGregor. "I am dying to see what she is like!"

"Darcy's going on board after her," said Val, "you'll see him linking her up the wharf. I say, Laura, Bill told me you had a letter from Miss Rose."

"Why, yes, didn't you know? And she is coming back with Mrs. Wheatly, and I am so glad!"

"Have you been corresponding with Miss Rose all this time, Laura?" inquired Miss Clowrie.