Finger Posts on the Way of Life

T >> T. S. Arthur >> Finger Posts on the Way of Life

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

"Can I doubt? If these were his sentiments," (holding up the letters
of Westfield,) "before my sister's marriage, can they have changed
immediately afterward. No, no; our confidence has been basely
betrayed. But the wretch shall pay for this dearly."

On the next day W----called upon Westfield in company with a friend
who had possession of the letters, and who read them as a
preliminary explanation of the cause of the visit.

"Did you write those letters?" W----asked, with a stern aspect.

"I certainly did," was the firm reply. "Do you question my right to
do so?"

"No: not your right to make known to my sister your sentiments
before marriage, but your right to abuse her husband's confidence
after marriage."

"Who dares say that I did?"

"I dare say it," returned the brother, passionately.

"You! Bring your proof."

"I want no better proof than the fact that, entertaining sentiments
such as are here avowed, you have visited her at all times, and
under nearly all circumstances. You have abused a husband's and a
brother's confidence. You have lain like a stinging viper in the
bosom of friendship."

"It is false!" replied Westfield, emphatically.

W----'s feelings were chafed to the utmost already. This remark
destroyed entirely the little self-control that remained. He sprang
toward Westfield, and would have grappled his throat, had not his
friend, who had feared some such result, been perfectly on his
guard, and stepped between the two men in time to prevent a
collision.

Nothing was now left W----but to withdraw, with his friend. A
challenge to mortal combat followed immediately. A meeting was the
result, in which Westfield was severely wounded. This made public
property of the whole matter; and as public feeling is generally on
the side of whoever is sufferer, quite a favourable impression of
the case began to prevail, grounded upon the denial of Westfield to
the charge of improper intimacy with Mrs. Miller. But this feeling
soon changed. The moment Mrs. Miller heard that Westfield had been
seriously wounded by her brother, she flew to his bedside, and
nursed him with unwearying devotion for three weeks; when he died of
inflammation arising from his wound.

This act sealed her fate: it destroyed all sympathy for her; it was,
in the mind of every one, proof positive of her guilt. When she
returned home, the house was closed against her. An application for
a divorce had already been laid before the legislature; then in
session at Annapolis, and, as the inferential proofs of defection
were strongly corroborated by Mrs. Miller's conduct after the
hostile meeting between Westfield and her brother, the application
was promptly granted, with the provision of five hundred dollars a
year for her support. The decision of the legislature, with
information of the annual amount settled upon her, were communicated
through the attorney of her husband. Her only answer was a prompt
and indignant refusal to accept the support the law had awarded her.
From that moment she sank into obscurity with her child, and with
her own hands earned the bread that sustained both their lives. From
that moment until the day of her death, all intercourse with her
family and friends was cut off. How great were her sufferings, no
one can know. They must have been nearly up to the level of human
endurance.

I learned this much from one who had been intimate with all the
circumstances. He remembered the duel very well, but had never
before understood the true cause. My informant had no knowledge
whatever of Mrs. Miller from the time of her divorce up to the
period of my inquiries. Miller himself still lived. I had some
slight acquaintance with him.

Under this aspect of things, I hardly knew what course to pursue in
order to raise the lad at Maxwell's above his present unhappy
condition. I entertained, for some time, the idea of communicating
with his father and uncle on the subject; but I could not make up my
mind to do this. The indignation with which they had thrown off his
erring mother, and the total oblivion that had been permitted to
fall upon her memory, made me fearful that to approach them on the
subject would accomplish no good for the boy, and might place me in
a very unpleasant position toward them. Thus far I had kept my own
counsel, although the nature of my inquiries about Mrs. Miller had
created some curiosity in the minds of one or two, who asked me a
good many questions that I did not see proper to answer directly.

"The child is innocent, even if the mother were guilty." This I said
to myself very frequently, as a reason why I should make every
effort in my power to create an interest in favour of little Bill,
and get him out of the hands of his master, who, in my view, treated
him With great cruelty. In thinking about the matter, it occurred to
me that in case Mrs. Miller were innocent of the derelictions
charged upon her, she would leave some evidence of the fact, for the
sake of her child at least. So strongly did this idea take hold of
my mind, that I determined to question Bill closely about his mother
as early as I could get an opportunity. This did not occur for
several weeks. I then met the boy in the street, hobbling along with
difficulty. I stopped him and asked him what ailed his feet. He said
they were sore, and all cracked open, and hurt him so that he could
hardly walk.

"Come round to my office and let me see them," said I.

"I am going to take these shoes to the binder's,"--he had a package
of "uppers" in his hand--"and must be back in twenty minutes, or Mr.
Maxwell says he will give me the strap." The boy made this reply,
and then hobbled on as fast as he could.

"Stop, stop, my lad," I called after him. "I want you for a little
while, and will see that Mr. Maxwell does not give you the strap.
You must come to my office and get something done for your feet."

"They are very bad," he said, turning round, and looking down at
them with a pitiable expression on his young face.

"I know they are, and you must have something done for them
immediately."

"Let me go to the binder's first."

"Very well. Go to the binder's. But be sure to come to my office as
you return; I want to see you particularly."

My words made the blood rush to the child's pale face. Hope again
was springing up in his bosom.

In about ten minutes he entered my office. His step was lighter, but
I could see that each footfall gave him pain. The first thing I did
was to examine his feet. They were in a shocking condition. One of
them had cracked open in several places, and the wounds had become
running sores; other parts were red and shining, and much swollen, I
dressed them carefully. When I came to replace his shoes, I found
them so dilapidated and out of shape, as to be no protection to his
feet whatever, but rather tending to fret them, and liable to rub
off the bandages I had put on. To remedy this, I sent my man out for
a new pair, of soft leather. When these were put on, and he stood
upon, his feet, he said that they did not hurt him at all. I needed
not his declaration of the fact to convince me of this, for the
whole expression of his face had changed. His eyes were no longer
fixed and sad; nor were his brows drawn down, nor his lips
compressed.

"I think you told me that your name was Miller?" I said to him, as
he stood looking earnestly in my face after the dressing of his feet
was completed.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"And that your mother was dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"I think you said that W----was your uncle?"

"Yes, sir. Mother told me that he was my uncle."

"Is your father living?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Did your mother ever speak to you about him?"

"No, sir."

"Then you can't tell whether he is living or not?"

"No, sir; but I suppose he is dead."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because I never saw him, nor heard mother speak of him."

"You are sure your name is Miller?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"And that Mr. W----is your uncle?"

"My mother said he was."

"Did you ever see him?"

"No, sir."

"Why don't you go, to see him, and tell him who you are?"

"I asked mother, one day, to let me do so, but she said I must never
think of such a thing."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"And so you never went to see him?"

"No, indeed; mother said I must not." This was said with great
artlessness.

"What became of your mother's things after she died?"

"The woman we rented from took them all. Mother owed her, she said."

"Indeed! Where did you live?"

"In Commerce street, three or four doors from Mr. Maxwell's. Mother
rented a room up-stairs."

"Does the woman live there still?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you ever go to see her?"

"No, sir; she won't let me come into the house."

"Why not?"

"I cannot tell. She was going to send me to the poorhouse, when Mr.
Maxwell took me in. I have often and often wanted to see the room
where we lived in, and where mother died, but she wouldn't let me go
up. One day I begged and cried for her to let me go up--I wanted to,
so bad; but she called me a dirty little brat, and told me to go
about my business, or she would get Mr. Maxwell to give me a
beating. I never have tried to go there since."

"What is the woman's name?"

"Her name is Mrs. Claxon."

"And she lives three or four doors from Mr. Maxwell's?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am going home with you in a little while, and will get you to
show me the house. Your mother had some furniture in her room?"

"Yes, sir. We had a bureau, and a bedstead, and a good many things."

"Do you know what was in the bureau?"

"Our clothes."

"Nothing else?"

"Mother had a beautiful little box that was always locked. It had
letters in it, I think."

"Did you ever see her reading them?"

"Oh yes, often, when she thought I was asleep; and she would cry,
sometimes, dreadful hard."

"This box Mrs. Claxon kept?"

"Yes, sir; she kept every thing."

"Very well. We will see if we can't make her give up some of the
things."

"If she will give me that little box, she may have every thing
else," said the lad.

"Why are you so desirous to have that box?"

"I sometimes think if I could get that box, and all the letters and
papers it had in it, that I would be able to know better who I am,
and why I mustn't go and see my uncle, who is rich, and could take
me away from where I am now."

"You don't like to live with Mr. Maxwell, then?"

"Oh no, sir."

I did not question him as to the reason; that was unnecessary.

After putting up one or two prescriptions, (we had not then fallen
into the modern more comfortable mode of _writing_ them,) I told the
boy that I would walk home with him, and excuse him to his master
for having stayed away so long. I had no great difficulty in doing
this, although the shoemaker seemed at first a little fretted at my
having taken up the lad's cause again. In passing to his shop, the
house where Mrs. Claxon lived was pointed out to me. Before leaving,
I made Maxwell promise to let the boy come up on the next evening to
get his feet dressed, telling him, what was true, that this was
necessary to be done, or very serious consequences might follow.

I then called upon Mrs. Claxon. She was a virago. But the grave and
important face that I put on when I asked if a Mrs. Miller did not
once live in her house, subdued her. After some little hesitation,
she replied in the affirmative.

"I knew as much," I said, thinking it well to let her understand
from the beginning that it would not do to attempt deception.

"She died here, I believe?" I continued.

"Yes, sir; she died in my house."

"She left some property in your hands, did she not?"

"Property? Humph! If you call an old bed and bedstead, with other
trumpery that didn't sell for enough to pay her back rent,
_property_, why, then, she did leave property."

"Of course," I said, calmly. "Whatever she left was property; and,
of course, in taking possession of it, you did so under a regular
legal process. You took out letters of administration, I presume,
and brought in your bill against the effects of the deceased, which
was regularly passed by the Orphans' Court, and paid out of the
amount for which the things sold."

The effect of this was just what I desired. The woman looked
frightened. She had done no such thing, as I knew very well.

"If you have proceeded in this way," I resumed, "all is well enough;
but if you have not done so, I am sorry to say that you will most
likely get yourself into trouble."

"How so, sir?" she asked, with increasing alarm.

"The law is very rigid in all these matters. When a person dies,
there must be a regular administration upon his property. The law
permits no one to seize upon his effects. In the case of Mrs.
Miller, if you were legally authorized to settle her estate, you
can, of course, account for all that came into your hands. Now, I am
about instituting a rigid examination into the matter, and if I do
not get satisfaction, shall have you summoned to appear before the
Orphans' Court, and answer for your conduct. Mrs. Miller was highly
connected, and it is believed had papers in her possession of vital
importance to the living. These were contained in a small casket of
costly and curious workmanship. This casket, with its contents, must
be produced. Can you produce them?"

"Y-y-yes!" the alarmed creature stammered out.

"Very well. Produce them at once, if you wish to save yourself a
world of trouble."

The woman hurried off up-stairs, and presently appeared with the
casket.

"It is locked," she said. "I never could find the key, and did not
like to force it open. She handed me the box as she spoke.

"Yes, this is it," I remarked, as if I was perfectly familiar with
the casket. "You are sure the contents have not been disturbed?"

"Oh yes: very sure."

"I trust it will be found so. I will take possession of the casket.
In a few days you will hear from me."

Saying this, I arose and left the house. I directed my steps to the
shop of a locksmith, whose skill quickly gave me access to the
contents. They consisted mainly of papers, written in a delicate
female hand; but there were no letters. Their contents were, to me,
of a most gratifying kind. I read on every, page the injured wife's
innocence. The contents of the first paper I read, I will here
transcribe. Like the others, it was a simple record of feelings,
coupled with declarations of innocence. The object in view, in
writing these, was not fully apparent; although the mother had
evidently in mind her child, and cherished the hope that, after her
death, these touching evidences of the wrong she had endured, would
cause justice to be done to him.

The paper I mentioned was as follows, and appeared to have been
written a short time after her divorce:--

"That I still live, is to me a wonder. But a few short months ago I
was a happy wife, and my husband loved me with a tenderness that
left my heart nothing to ask for. I am now cast off from his
affections, driven from his home, repudiated, and the most horrible
suspicions fastened upon me; And worse, the life of one who never
wronged me by a look, or word, or act--in whose eyes my honour was
as dear as his own--has been murdered. Oh! I shall yet go mad with
anguish of spirit! There are heavy burdens to bear in this life; but
none can be heavier than that which an innocent wife has to endure,
when all accuse her as I am accused, and no hope of justice is left.

"Let me think calmly. Are not the proofs of my guilt strong? Those
letters--those fatal letters--why did I keep them? I had no right to
do so. They should have been destroyed. But I never looked at them
from the day I gave my hand with my heart at the altar to one who
now throws me off as a polluted wretch. But I knew they were there,
and often thought of them; but to have read over one line of their
contents, would have been false to my husband; and that I could not
be, under any temptation. I think Westfield was wrong, under the
circumstances, to visit me as constantly as he did; but my husband
appeared to like his company, and even encouraged him to come. Many
times he has asked him to drive me out, or to attend me to a concert
or the theatre, as he knew that I wished to go, and he had business
that required his attention, or felt a disinclination to leave home.
In not a single instance, when I thus went out, would not my
pleasure have been increased, had my husband been my companion; and
yet I liked the company of Westfield--perhaps too well. The remains
of former feelings may still have lingered, unknown to me, in my
heart. But I was never false to my husband, even in thought; nor did
Westfield ever presume to take the smallest liberty. Indeed, whether
in my husband's presence, or when with me, his manner was polite,
and inclined to be deferential rather than familiar. I believe that
the sentiments he held toward me before my marriage, remained; and
these, while they drew him to my side, made him cherish my honour
and integrity as a wife, as he would cherish the apple of his eye.
And yet he has been murdered, and I have been cast off, while both
were innocent! Fatal haste! Fatal misjudgment! How suddenly have I
fallen from the pinnacle of happiness into the dark pit of despair!
Alas! alas! Who can tell what a day may bring forth?"

Another, and very important paper, which the casket contained, was a
written declaration of Mrs. Miller's innocence, made by Westfield
before his death. It was evidently one of his last acts, and was
penned with a feeble and trembling hand. It was in these impressive
words:--

"Solemnly, in the presence of God, and without the hope of living
but a few hours, do I declare that Mrs. Anna Miller is innocent of
the foul charges made against her by her husband and brother, and
that I never, even in thought, did wrong to her honour. I was on
terms of close intimacy with her, and this her husband knew and
freely assented to. I confess that I had a higher regard for her
than for any living woman. She imbodied all my highest conceptions
of female excellence. I was never happier than when in her company.
Was this a crime? It would have been had I attempted to win from her
any thing beyond a sentiment of friendship. But this I never did
after her marriage, and do not believe that she regarded me in any
other light than as her own and her husband's friend. This is all
that, as a dying man, I can do or say. May heaven right the
innocent! HENRY WESTFIELD."

Besides the paper in the handwriting of Mrs. Miller, which I have
given, there were many more, evidently written at various times, but
all shortly after her separation from her husband. They imbodied
many touching allusions to her condition, united with firm
expressions of her entire innocence of the imputation under which
she lay. One sentiment particularly arrested my attention, and
answered the question that constantly arose in my mind, as to why
she did not attempt, by means of Westfield's dying asseveration, to
establish her innocence. It was this:--

"He has prejudged me guilty and cast me off without seeing me or
giving me a hearing, and then insulted me by a legislative tender of
five hundred dollars a year. Does he think that I would save myself,
even from starvation, by means of his bounty? No--no--he does not
know the woman he has wronged."

After going over the entire contents of the casket, I replaced them,
and sent the whole to Mr. Miller, with a brief note, stating that
they had come into my possession in rather a singular manner, and
that I deemed it but right to transmit them to him. Scarcely half an
hour had elapsed from the time my messenger departed, before Miller
himself entered my office, pale and agitated. I had met him a few
times before, and had a slight acquaintance with him.

"This is from you, I believe, doctor?" he said, holding up the note
I had written him.

I bowed.

"How did you come in possession of the casket you sent me?" he
continued as he took the chair I handed him.

I was about replying, when he leaned over toward me, and laying his
hand upon my arm, said, eagerly--

"First tell me, is the writer of its contents living?"

"No," I replied; "she has been dead over two years."

His countenance fell, and he seemed, for some moments, as if his
heart had ceased to beat. "Dead!" he muttered to himself--"dead! and
I have in my hands undoubted proofs of her innocence."

The expression of his face became agonizing.

"Oh, what would I not give if she were yet alive," he continued,
speaking to himself. "Dead--dead--I would rather be dead with her
than living with my present consciousness."

"Doctor," said he, after a pause, speaking in a firmer voice, "let
me know how those papers came into your hands?" I related, as
rapidly as I could, what the reader already knows about little Bill
and his mother dwelling as strongly as I could upon the suffering
condition of the poor boy.

"Good heavens!" ejaculated Miller, as I closed my narrative--"can
all this indeed be true? So much for hasty judgment from
appearances! You have heard the melancholy history of my wife?"

I bowed an assent.

"From these evidences, that bear the force of truth, it is plain
that she was innocent, though adjudged guilty of one of the most
heinous offences against society. Innocent, and yet made to suffer
all the penalties of guilt. Ah, sir--I thought life had already
brought me its bitterest cup: but all before were sweet to the taste
compared with the one I am now compelled to drink. Nothing is now
left me, but to take home my child. But, as he grows up toward
manhood, how can I look him in the face, and think of his mother
whom I so deeply wronged."

"The events of the past, my dear sir," I urged, "cannot be altered.
In a case like this, it is better to look, forward with hope, than
backward with self-reproaches."

"There is little in the future to hope for," was the mournful reply
to this.

"But you have a duty to perform, and, in the path of duty, always
lie pleasures."

"You mean to my much wronged and suffering child. Yes, I have a
duty, and it shall be performed as faithfully as lies in my power.
But I hope for little from that source."

"I think you may hope for much. Your child I have questioned
closely. He knows nothing of his history; does not even know that
his father is alive. The only information he has received from his
mother is, that W----is his uncle."

"Are you sure of this?"

"Oh yes. I have, as I said, questioned him very closely on this
point."

This seemed to relieve the mind of Mr. Miller. He mused for some
minutes, and then said--

"I wish to see my son, and at once remove him from his present
position. May I ask you to accompany me to the place where he now
is."

"I will go with pleasure," I returned, rising.

We left my office immediately, and went direct to Maxwell's shop. As
we entered, we heard most agonizing cries, mingled with hoarse angry
imprecations from the shoemaker and the sound of his strap. He was
whipping some one most severely. My heart misgave me that it was
poor little Bill. We hurried into the shop. It was true. Maxwell had
the child across his knees, and was beating him most cruelly.

"That is your son," I said, in an excited voice to Miller, pointing
to the writhing subject of the shoemaker's ire. In an instant
Maxwell was lying four or five feet from his bench in a corner of
his shop, among the lasts and scraps of leather. A powerful blow on
the side of his head, with a heavy cane, had done his. The father's
hand had dealt it. Maxwell rose to his feet in a terrible fury, but
the upraised cane of Miller, his dark and angry countenance, and his
declaration that if he advanced a step toward him, or attempted to
lay his hand again upon the boy, he would knock his brains out,
cooled his ire considerably.

"Come, my boy," Miller then said, catching hold of the hand of the
sobbing child--"let me take you away from this accursed den for
ever."

"Stop!" cried Maxwell, coming forward at this; "you cannot take that
boy away. He is bound to me by law, until he is twenty-one. Bill!
don't you dare to go."

"Villain!" said Miller, in a paroxysm of anger, turning toward
him--"I will have you before the the court in less than twenty-four
hours for inhuman treatment of this child--of _my child_."

As Miller said this, the trembling boy at his side started and
looked eagerly in his face.

"Oh, sir! Are you indeed my father?" said he, in a voice that
thrilled me to the finger ends.

"Yes, William; I am your father, and I have come to take you home."

Tears gushed like rain over the cheeks of the poor boy. He shrank
close to his father's side, and clung to him with a strong grasp,
still looking up into a face that he had never hoped to see, with a
most tender, confiding, hopeful, expressive countenance.

The announcement of the fact subdued the angry shoemaker. He made a
feeble effort at apology, but was cut short by our turning abruptly
from him and carrying of the child he had so shamefully abused.

I parted from the father and son at the first carriage-stand that
came in our way. When I next saw Bill, his appearance was very
different indeed from what it was when I first encountered him. His
father lived some ten years from this time during the most of which
period William was at school or college. At his death he left him a
large property, which remained with him until his own death, which
took place a few years ago. He never I believe, had the most distant
idea of the cause which had separated his mother from his father.
That there had been a separation he knew too well but, he always
shrank from inquiring the reason, and had always remained in
ignorance of the main facts here recorded.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12