Bennett, Emerson - Oliver Goldfinch Read online

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE PAST RECALLED.

  Ere we proceed farther with our story, it is important we should touch somewhat upon the past, in order to show the train of circumstances which placed some of our characters in the position they occupied when introduced to the reader. In doing this, we shall endeavor to be as brief as possible, well knowing that, to most, long details of such matters prove excessively tedious. To begin then at the beginning, let us go back some twenty-five years, to the marriage of Ethan Courtly and Mary Goldfinch, the parents of Edgar and Virginia. From some remarks dropped by Edgar to his uncle, recorded in the opening chapter, the reader has already had an inkling of what is to come; but still there are many things not yet mentioned, which, as a faithful chronicler, we deem it our duty here to set forth. At the time the marriage in question took place, Mary and her brother were orphans, living on a small estate bequeathed them by their father, who had died a year or two previous, and who had himself been a widower some three or four years. Their place of residence was near a small village, in the state of Maryland, distant about thirty miles from the city of Baltimore.— But notwithstanding they remained on the farm or plantation of their late father, we would not have the reader infer they were awkward country rustics, who had never mingled in refined society. On the contrary, their doating father had taken every pains to give both an education and polish superior to those by whom they were surrounded. Oliver had entered college very young, and graduated in his twentieth year; and Mary had left boarding school a ripe scholar at the age of sixteen. In fine, so lavish had been the expenditures of their father on them, that he had much impoverished his small estate, and besides encumbering a part with mortgage, had been obliged to dispose of all his negroes but two, in order to liquidate the more pressing debts. At his death, Oliver took charge of the estate, and, by close management, and a sale of a few acres, succeeded in raising the mortgage and becoming sole proprietor; for though his sister was entitled to a portion, he took no other notice of her claims, than to offer her a home so long as she might remain unmarried. Mary was not well pleased, for the disposition of her brother was illy suited to render her happy. He was morose and haughty to those he considered his dependents, or held in his power, though fawning enough to his superiors, or such as he expected by hypocritical manoeuvers to profit by. He was, withal, very ambitious, grasping and avaricious—so that those who knew him best, shunned him as they would a viper, and scandalized him much whenever his name chanced to be mentioned. But he had a faculty of making his dupes think him perfect; and those on whom he had a design, who had as yet only seen the bright side, could not be brought to believe that the refined, softspoken, smiling, agreeable young Goldfinch, could be the base hypocrite men reported him. No! it was wilful, malignant slander, to injure a high-minded, honorable young man; and their sympathies being aroused in consequence, they were only the more fully and blindly drawn into the net he had prepared for them, and which they seldom if ever discovered until too late to escape. He was a man without principle, who would stoop to any meanness to accomplish his end; though, to casually see and hear him converse, one would suppose him the very quintessence of nobleness and honor. The first thing that sorely troubled Mary, and opened her eyes to his real nature— for having both been sent to school at an early age, she had seen little of him until her return—was his importuning her to inveigle and marry some rich young man; and this, too, ere their father had been six months in his grave, and while she was deeply mourning his death. "Now do not have any false notions, Mary," he would say to her, "but follow my instructions, and you will soon be mistress of a splendid mansion. I have several acquaintances who are rich, and, though a little wild, that need not matter, for they will be the easier entangled, if the card be rightly played, and be the less likely to look close into the affair afterwards; and so you get plenty of money, and live in elegant style, what need you care? Come! I will invite them here, and trust me, I will soon see you settled as becomes my sister." At first Mary thought him in jest, and laughed at his to her curious ideas of what should make a proper husband; but discovering soon her mistake, she mildly reproved him for being so worldly, and firmly declared she would not see his friends alone, much more listen to any proposals of the nature he required, even should they be never so strenuous in urging suit. In vain her brother sought, by all the false reasoning he could invent, to turn her from her resolve. The more he importuned the firmer she grew, until at last, so repugnant became the subject to her feelings, and so ardent her desire to convince her brother she would never relent, that she took a solemn oath, calling Heaven to witness, she would never, knowingly, marry a man of wealth. Oliver, who had seen enough of his sister to know she would keep her vow, now let the matter drop, and appeared to acquiesce in her decision— though in reality he was secretly laying a plan to entrap her, by introducing to her a young man of wealth, and concealing from her the fact. This plan he put in execution, and the young man apparently proving an agreeable suitor, the affair seemed likely to terminate as he desired. Month upon month rolled away, and still the friend of Oliver paid his visits regularly to Mary; and, as is usual in such cases, Rumor, with her thousand tongues, said it would be a match. Oliver was delighted that his scheme was about to succeed; and on the strength of it, he borrowed of his intended brother-in-law a large sum of money, by which to prosecute a suit of his own, in Baltimore, with an heiress. But there were two persons who had no faith in the reported marriage ever taking place. One of these was Mary herself, and the name of the other has already been mentioned in these pages, and will soon occur again. With Mary's ostensible lover, it also began to grow doubtful; for whenever he asked the important question, she would always desire farther time to consider. At last he grew desperate, and said he would not be put off any longer; that she must answer Yes or No at the end of a week, which he farther granted her of his own accord. She calmly replied, that if he would call a week from that night, he should have her positive answer. At the time appointed the young man came, and was handed a note by the servent, which contained a direct, though respectful, refusal of his hand. Chagrined at this, he sought young Oliver, who had been the means of bringing him there, and who had often encouraged his addresses, by telling him his sister was passionately in love with him. When Oliver saw the note, he became very much enraged, and inquired for his sister. The servant said she had that evening gone out with the village schoolmaster, Ethan Courtly. "By —!" cried Oliver Goldfinch, stamping his foot in a paroxism of anger, "I see it all. I thought that young scape-grace, whom I have frequently seen here of late, was after no good. They have eloped!— My horse! my horse! I must overtake the runaways." But Oliver, and his friend who accompanied him, proved too late. Ere the former found his sister, she was the lawful wife of Ethan Courtly; and cursing her in the most vindictive language he could invent, and swearing roundly he would ever after d isown her, and sometime be revenged, he turned upon his heel, and, accompanied by his friend, departed in haste. Greatly were the good people of Sandville— for so we will call the village—astonished at hearing of the runaway nuptials of Ethan Courtly and Mary Goldfinch; for so cautiously had both managed, and so blindly had all given credence to the report of her engagement with another, that the news fell upon them like a thunder bolt. About a year previous to this marriage, Ethan Courtly, a young man of education this time Ethan Courtly arranged to embark on one of his own vessels for a foreign clime, but with the intention and expectation of returning to his beloved family within a twelve-month from setting sail. Before he departed, Oliver was very strenuous in urging him to make his will; to which he remonstrated, by saying he did not deem such a proceeding necessary, as, in case he died intestate, of course the property would fall to his rightful heirs, which was all he desired. But the wily schemer, after much quiet reasoning, gained his point, as in fact he ever did with his single-minded brother-in-law, and was deputed to employ a lawyer and have all settled in due form. It is needless to say more t
han that the will was drawn, attested, and placed upon record the day previous to the departure of Ethan Courtly. We now skip a period of five months, during which Oliver Goldfinch assiduously attended to the affairs of his absent relative, when suddenly, with the shock of a thunderbolt falling from a cloudless sky, there came the painful intelligence that the Mary Helen, on which Ethan Courtly had embarked, had been wrecked off the the coast of France, and that every soul aboard of her had perished. We pass over the effect of this news upon Mrs. Courtly and her children, both of whom were recalled from school to bitterly mourn the loss of a beloved and indulgent parent. On the receipt of the tidings regarding the sad fate of his brother-in-law, Oliver Goldfinch went into mourning; and with a pale, sanctimonious face, and eyes made red by wiping, if not by weeping, managed to appear the most disconsolate of mourners; so much so, that it was often remarked by those who knew not the heart of the dissembler, that he must have loved his relative dearly to take his death so hard. After a proper time given to sorrow, Oliver notified his sister that it would now be necessary to have the estate of his dear brother Ethan settled according to law, and that as he was aware the deceased had made a will, it would be proper to have it brought forward and read. To this, of course, Mrs. Courtly assented; but judge of her astonishment, and that of her friends, on learning that out of the vast estate of her late husband, only five thousand dollars had been bequeathed to herself and children; while the balance, amounting at the least calculation to many hundred thousand dollars, including the splendid home mansion, had been bestowed upon Oliver—with the provise, that should he die childless, it must revert to Edgar and Virginia and their issue—or, in case of their demise without issue, to the next heir or heirs at law. Surprised and shocked as she was at this stunning intelligence, Mrs. Courtly doubted not it was all correct; and believing that her late husband, whom she completely idolized, had had a proper motive for what he had done, and that it would all prove for the best in the end, she never once attempted to dispute the claim of Oliver, or break the will and sue for her thirds, as all her friends advised her to do. "No," she would say, in answer to the many solicitations that she would do so and so; "Ethan knew what was best, and far be it from me to alter what he designed. My happiness consists in conforming to his desires." Finding her determined on the matter, her friends soon ceased to importune her, and Oliver had it all his own way. Knowing it required the most skillful management to effect his avaricious purpose, without wounding the sensitive nature of his sister, he redoubled his grief and duplicity, and went about bemoaning to her his hard fate, in being obliged to dispose of this thing and that, to carry out the desires of his dearly beloved brother, and always ended by saying, that when the estate should have become properly settled, he would give her a deed of the homestead, and settle upon her an independency for life. This promised providence for her future wants satisfied Mrs. Courtly, and she saw her fine home sold over her head, without a murmur, firmly believing her brother would keep his word, and in due time restore her all. In sooth, though she knew her brother had once been very worldlyminded, yet of late years he had been so guarded in her presence, so sanctimonious and demure, that she, poor woman, now truly believed there had been a wonderful reformation at heart. It was at least a year or more from the reported death of Ethan Courtly, ere Oliver Goldfinch had settled every thing to his satisfaction. By this time, estates, ships, negroes, goods and chattels, each and all, had been disposed of; and with the money they brought in his possession, Oliver informed his sister that she might now remain contented in her home; that all had been arranged to her desire; and that he, with his wife and children, with the first of whom he had now become reconciled, were on the point of leaving for New York, where they hoped to have the pleasure of her society occasionally. Thus they parted; and never for a moment did Mrs. Courtly doubt the word of her brother, until notified, about six months after he had left, that she must vacate the premises she then occupied, as the mansion, appartenances and grounds had been purchased by a gentleman who was now desirous of taking immediate possession. For some time Mrs. Courtly could not be brought to believe her brother had acted so base and ungrateful a part; and she at once wrote to him, asking an explanation. After considerable delay she received an answer, to the effect that he was very sorry to say the matter of sale was true; that he had done it to oblige a friend, who had set his heart upon having that residence; but that to compensate his sister, he was already negotiating for a residence, every way its superior, which, in case she resolved to come to New York, he would certainly purchase and present her. For the first time the truth flashed upon Mrs. Courtly, that both she and her lamented husband had been the blind dupes of an artful and ungrateful villain; and so sudden, powerful and heart-sickening was the shock of this conviction, which she gained on reading his letter, that, clasping her forehead and staggering back, she sunk senseless to the ground, and a delirious fever followed, which nearly cost her her life at the time, and from the effects of which she never fully recovered. We must now hurry to the close of this history, which we fear has already become tedious to the reader, but with which, notwithstanding, it was all important he should be made acquainted. For a long time Mrs. Courtly did not deign an answer to the epistle of her brother. As soon as able, she quitted her once loved home with a breaking heart, yielding it up to strangers, and seeking a more humble abode for herself—both her children now being at school—and she fully determined to spend every cent, if necessary, in giving them what could not take wings and fly away—a good education. And it did take every cent; and at last Mrs. Courtly was obliged to recall Edgar and Virginia, for want of means to longer support them abroad. Two years now passed, and then, reduced almost to beggary, she wrote to her brother, detailing her wants, cares and anxieties. Having waited an almost interminable long while, and receiving no answer, Mrs. Courtly determined on proceeding to New York herself, and making an appeal to him in propria personTo carry out this design, she sold her few remaining effects, and with the proceeds set out on her journey, accompanied by Edgar and Virginia. We have not space here to follow her through all her weary trials and disappointments, after her arrival in New York, up to the moment she was brought before the reader; but suffice, that to her horror and despair, she found herself disowned by him from whom she expected aid, and in a strange land, among strangers, cast upon a cold, heartless world, and doomed to suffer all the misery an innocent being can feel. Several times did Edgar call upon his uncle and ask for aid— but always to be insulted and refused; and even the negro servant, once his father's slave, having caught the infection, prided himself on his equality with the poor relations of his present master, as has already been shown by his conduct and language in the opening chapter. Vainly did Edgar seek for employment from day to day. Nothing could he obtain, for the reason that, having done nothing through life, he could not bring experience to back his suit. Day by day did the Courtlys find themselves becoming more and more reduced— for though very economical now, every little they spent made a wide breach in their limited means. To render matters still worse, the health of Mrs. Courtly began to fail rapidly; and it soon became painfully evident to her children, that unless a great change took place for the better, they would ere long be orphans. But notwithstanding her ailings, Mrs. Courtly would not consent to see a physician, because of the extra expense which would thus be incurred, and which they were now so illy fitted to bear. As it was, they were obliged to dispose of their jewelry, old family relics, and finally the greater part of their wardrobe, to pay their rent and procure the necessaries of life. Even these failed them at last; and only a few days previous to our introduction of them to the reader, their stonyhearted landlord seized upon and sold their furniture, and turned them into the street, with only a few remaining articles. The hovel where we found them seemed the only retreat now open; and into this they gathered their remaining effects, prefering even this to begging for a better. Their last cent was now soon spent for fuel and food, and the
reader has seen even the last of these. The health of Mrs. Courtly now failed more and more rapidly, until exhausted nature could sustain her no longer; and suffering with cold, dampness, want of food, proper nursing and medical attendance, together with grief, care and anxiety for her children, she literally died of starvation and a broken heart.