CHAPTER XIII.

MISCHIEF-MAKING.

THE breach was now complete between the two families.

Agnes avoided Letty entirely when they met in the street, and gave all her acquaintances to understand that she had been deeply injured by her cousin, who had attempted to defraud her of half her mother's property. A few people who did not know Letty believed the story. But others argued that Mr. Trescott would not probably be engaged in any disreputable matter,—and, further, remembered that Mrs. Emerson was never happy unless she had a grievance, and that, of the two, Caswell was far more likely to be in the right than Emerson.

In truth, the firm of Van Horn & Emerson was not growing in respectability. They were making money fast enough, no doubt,—at least they had the credit of so doing. Their establishment increased in splendour every year, and Mr. Van Horn had entered into partnership with some wealthy distillers; but, for all that, people looked somewhat askance upon them. It was well-known that the billiard-room of their splendid marble building was really their concern, though held in the name of another; and people said that billiards made the smallest part of the business carried on there.

Now, T—, though it was called a city, and boasted of a mayor and corporation, a court-house and a public library, and manufactured to the amount of some ten or twelve millions annually, was, after all, a primitive sort of place, where people went to church, as a matter of course, on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, kept regular hours, and looked upon respectability in general as a thing to be desired instead of ridiculed. People began to say openly that a great deal of mischief was growing out of frequent card-parties,—that young men began the evening with whist and wine at Mrs. Emerson's and Mrs. Van Horn's, and finished it with faro and brandy at the Alhambra,—which was true enough; and they said still harder things about traps and decoy-ducks,—which were somewhat unjust so far as Agnes was concerned, but of which she felt the effects nevertheless; and so it came to pass that Agnes did not find so much sympathy as she desired in her quarrel with her cousin.

Letty, for her part, regretted the breach for several reasons, but chiefly on account of Madge, who she feared would be sadly neglected now that her grandmother was gone. It was a comfort to know that Agnes continued to keep Mary, whose attachment to the child would probably preserve her from actual suffering. But her heart ached as she thought of the poor little girl alone, hour after hour, in her third story room, unable even to reach the window without help, and with no amusement but her books and her little dog.

She met Mary in the street one day, and eagerly inquired for Madge.

"Well, indeed, ma'am, 'tis not much I can say for her," replied Mary. "She does not improve at all, that I can see, and she is very lonely without the old lady. I stay with her all I can; but then I have my own work to do, and no small matter of it, now we have so much company. 'Deed, ma'am, and if I had a child like that, I'd not be leaving her to a girl. And she so fond of her mother, too, and watching every time she hears her come in, to see if she isn't coming up-stairs."

"But I suppose Mrs. Emerson does spend a good deal of time with Madge, after all?" said Letty, anxious to get at the truth, but not quite liking to question Mary.

"She can't be in two places at once," replied Mary. "She can't be making calls and shopping, and out every night or else having company at home, and be in the nursery at the same time. If she spends an hour a day with Madge, 'tis a wonder."

"And how does the poor child employ herself?" asked Letty.

"Oh, she reads a deal,—especially in the Bible; and you'll laugh, ma'am, when I tell you she has taught me to read. Not a word could I make out a year ago; and now I can read pretty well. And there's a young lady next door who comes to see her sometimes,—a Miss Cutler,—who has taught Madge to do crochet-work and embroidering; and that keeps her busy. She begs money of her father, and sends me out to buy wool, and so on, for her; and there she sits propped up in bed, and works away as though her life depended on it. She has made a beautiful sofa-cushion and a pair of footstools for the parlour, already. I think sometimes she works too much; but it is a great comfort to her,—poor child!"

"Does she ever speak of me?" asked Letty.

"Oh, yes, many a time, and wants to see you; but she don't dare say a word to her father or mother, they feel so against you and Mr. Caswell. Mr. Emerson told her never to speak your name. You never saw a body so changed as he is. He used to be such an easy-going kind of man, you know; and now he is dreadful violent when he gets into one of his tantrums. They have changed cooks a dozen times since we moved into that house; and I'd 'a' gone away many a time if it hadn't been for leaving that child."

"Don't go if you can help it, Mary," said Letty, earnestly. "Think how sad it would be for the poor child to be left to the care of strangers."

"True for you, ma'am. It is that which keeps me; for I could have got better places a dozen times; but I can't leave the child, as long as I can stand it to stay there."

Letty gave Mary a present, and sent a great many messages to Madge, which the girl promised to deliver. She had little hope of a reconciliation at present. She knew that Joe must feel very much ashamed of his attempt to make her give up her rights; and she was well aware how hard it is for most people to forgive those whom they have injured.

She did, however, make one more attempt to put an end to the quarrel. Hearing, through a mutual acquaintance, that Agnes was about to be confined, she worked the prettiest baby-blanket that wit could devise or hands crochet, and at the birth of her little boy, she sent it to Agnes with a kind note.

The parcel was carried up to Agnes, who opened it herself. Her eyes sparkled at the sight of such a beautiful piece of work; and, to do her justice, her heart was really touched by what she could not but feel to be the undeserved kindness of Letty's note and present.

"Well, really, I must say it was very pretty in Letty!" she said, displaying the blanket to Mrs. Van Horn, who was spending the morning with her. "I do think she really has the most forgiving temper in the world."

"It is easy for people who have no feeling to be forgiving," said Mrs. Van Horn.

"That is not the case with Letty, at any rate," returned Agnes. "She may not feel things as deeply as I do,—indeed, few people are like me in that respect,—but it is not right to say that she has no feeling. She has always been very kind to Madge."

"Oh, yes, because she could make use of her as a spy to find out what was going on in the family," said Mrs. Van Horn. "But I am surprised that you should talk of her being forgiving, Agnes. You don't mean to say, I suppose, that she was in the right all along, and that you and your husband were in the wrong?"

"No; of course not," replied Agnes. "But there were hard things said, and Joe treated her very improperly, that must be confessed: and, right or wrong, it shows a good spirit in her that she should be willing to make the first advances. And then the blanket is so very pretty!" she added, spreading it out. "I never, in all my life, saw any thing in more perfect taste. It is much prettier than the one Mrs. Booth had made in New York."

"Pretty or not, it is rather a pity that you should sacrifice your dignity to such a trifle," said Mrs. Van Horn; "and, I must say, you will do so most decidedly if you accept a present from such a source."

"I can take care of my own dignity, thank you," said Agnes, with some asperity.

"Oh, very well. I am sure I don't want to interfere,—only I don't think Mr. Emerson will be very well pleased with what you are doing."

"It is not absolutely necessary that Mr. Emerson should know all about my baby-things," said Agnes, considerably vexed, and determined to hold her own, as she said. "I don't want any one telling me how to behave to my husband."

"Oh, well, you mustn't excite yourself," said Mrs. Van Horn, soothingly: "that would be very bad both for you and the baby. I am sure it is very amiable in you to accept this present,—a very pretty one it is, to be sure,—and, as you say, Mr. Emerson need not know about it."

Nevertheless, Mrs. Van Horn was fully determined in her own mind that it should not be her fault if Mr. Emerson did not know all about the matter directly. Accordingly, she made an errand to the counting-room, as Joe called a little glass case with a private entrance at the back of the store.

"I have been spending the morning with your good wife, Mr. Emerson," she began "How nicely she is getting on! And what a splendid little fellow the baby is getting to be! He will look just like you: that is plain to be seen already."

"Yes; I flatter myself there is not a nicer boy of his age in town," replied Joe. "And how is Aggy? Do you think she is going on pretty well?"

"Oh, yes, indeed: I left her very happy over a present she had just received from her cousin,—the prettiest thing of the kind I ever saw!"

"From her cousin!" said Joe, with a darkening brow. "You don't mean to say that Mrs. Caswell has had the impudence to send her a present, and that she has been fool enough to accept it?"

Mrs. Van Horn shrugged her shoulders a little.

"Dear me! What a forgetful creature I am! I quite forgot that I was to say nothing about it. Dear Agnes is so placable and so forgiving: she thought she would accept the present and say nothing to you. And here I have let the cat out of the bag the very first thing: you see I am so unused to having secrets. But, pray, Mr. Emerson, don't tell Agnes that I betrayed her. It certainly is a beautiful present, and must have been very expensive,—rather too much so for Mrs. Caswell's means, I should say; but, then, I presume, she thought she could afford to stretch a point for the sake of gaining her ends."

"She will find that she has not gained her ends this time," said Joe, angrily.

"Oh, I don't know. She always had a great knack of gaining an influence over people. She has always regularly hoodwinked Mrs. Trescott, and even Mrs. Campion, who fancies herself so shrewd; and she can turn poor, dear Madge round her finger, you know. But, pray, Mr. Emerson, don't betray me!" Then she said to her husband, after Joe was out of hearing, "I flatter myself that was rather well done."

"Yes, it was; and it will never do to let Emerson come under Caswell's influence just now. He is restive as it is; was talking this very morning about conscience and honour and all that, because I wanted him to bring young Haskins to our house to-night; but soon brought him to terms. He is the easiest person in the world to manage, if you only go to work right."

Joe's previous dispute with his partner had no tendency to make him more amiable. He went directly up to Agnes's room and demanded at once to see that rag Mrs. Caswell had had the impudence to send her, and asked her how she dared receive a present from that woman. Agnes prevaricated and cried, and finally went into hysterics; but Joe was inexorable. With his own hands, he wrapped up the blanket in a newspaper and sent it back to Mrs. Caswell with an insulting message,—which, however, the man had the discretion not to deliver.

On returning to his wife's room, he found he had done no little mischief. Agnes was in hysterical convulsions, and the nurse was frantically sending all the people in the house after the doctor, and declaring that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife and his child too.

The doctor looked very grave when he came, turned Joe at once out of his wife's room, and stayed so long that he began to be thoroughly scared and to wish he had let the matter alone. The most profound quiet was enjoined, the doctor declaring that he would not answer for the consequences of another attack.

It was several days before Joe was allowed to enter his wife's room; and when he did so, he brought with him a peace-offering,—a silver cup for the baby and an Indian shawl for Agnes, the object of her lifelong ambition: so that he was received again into favour.

Agnes had a pretty sharp quarrel with Mrs. Van Horn upon the occasion; and, though a peace was finally patched up by their husbands, they were never so intimate afterwards.

There was some excuse for Joe's irritable temper. He was, in fact, a very unhappy man; and he was growing more and more so every day. He was, as John Caswell said, a man of good impulses and of a kind and amiable disposition. He could not shut his eyes to the difference between right and wrong. He knew that his business was an injurious one; that it was doing great harm in the community,—even the open and avowed part of it, and much more that branch which was concealed. He knew that his fine house and his good-looking wife and his pleasant little suppers were used by Van Horn as "pits to catch vain-glorious fools withal," as John Bunyan says; to attract that prey which furnished the best part of their profits. His pride, as well as his better feeling, revolted against such a use; and he and his partner had had more than one dispute, in which he was always conquered by Mr. Van Horn's superior coolness.

That very morning there had been a sharp altercation between them on the subject of young Haskins, the only son of Joe's former employer at the chemical works,—a somewhat weak-minded young man, too well supplied with money, but quite deficient in brains. George Haskins had just come from college, where he had been rather "fast," and where he had acquired a decided taste for wine and cards.

Mr. Van Horn insisted that Joe should renew his acquaintance with this lad, and bring him to one of Mrs. Van Horn's card-parties. Joe resisted, well knowing how the matter would end, and feeling bound by former kindness received from the elder Mr. Haskins. He resisted, and was conquered as usual; and very mean did he appear in his own eyes, as he did the bidding of his partner and called upon the poor victim to invite him to his house,—so mean that an extra glass of brandy was required to quiet the twinges of conscience and restore him to the place he desired to hold in his own esteem. These extra glasses were becoming every-day matters with Joe; and Van Horn had more than once cautioned him that he was drinking too much.

"You will get the horrors some day, if you are not careful. You will by-and-by think you can't do without it, and then you will go to the dogs."

"I went to the dogs when I first went into this business," said Joe, with an oath. "I wish the whole concern had been sunk before I ever saw it! There is poor little Mrs. Hazel turned out of her boarding-place this morning,—so Williams tells me. All her pretty things and bridal presents kept by the landlord to pay for their board."

"That is a pity; but such things will happen," replied Mr. Van Horn, coolly. "Hazel has no moderation. I suppose he lost every cent of his pay, and more besides, the last time he was here. He had a run of bad luck; but he would keep on playing till he was cleaned out."

"Yes, and we got it all; and there is that poor little woman left without a home."

"She can go to her father's," said Mr. Van Horn. "The old man is rich enough. However, it is none of our business, that I know of. But I tell you it will be your business—and a bad business, too—if you don't let that brandy alone."

But Joe could not let the brandy alone. It had already become necessary to him. Every morning he awoke with a throbbing head and a heavy heart, loathing the day's work before him, loathing himself for submitting to it, feeling himself disgraced in his own eyes and condemned before God. For, however much he might wish it, Joe had never been able to make himself an unbeliever. He might laugh as he pleased at Parson Williams's fire-and-brimstone stories (as he called them) and Dr. Woodman's pious speeches; but in his heart of hearts he knew the future they spoke of was an awful reality, to which every day brought him nearer. Van Horn, while he professed great respect for religious observances, and attended public worship once every Sunday, really succeeded in putting the matter entirely out of his thoughts and acting as if there was no God.

Joe, though he never went to church, and professed himself an utter skeptic, lived in constant dread of that unseen Being whose existence he all-but denied, and whose interference in the affairs of men he treated as a ridiculous fable. Every morning he awoke with a load upon his mind and conscience which made him wretched and morose; and it was not till he had taken his glass of spirits—conveniently disguised with aromatics, and going under the name of somebody's "bitters"—that he was at all easy or comfortable.

Agnes herself was almost afraid to speak to him till he had taken his morning dram. She was, as we know, neither very wise nor very clear-sighted; but even she began to be seriously uneasy, as she watched the growth of her husband's evil habit, and perceived that he was falling into the snare that he had been so long setting for others. She even ventured to speak to him about the matter, but was met with such a torrent of abuse and reproach that she never ventured to repeat the experiment.

"If I ever am a drunkard, it is you who will have made me so," were Joe's concluding words. "You would not let me alone till you dragged me into this business; and now you may take the consequences."

Her infant, who was really a beautiful boy, had waked up something of the mother in her heart. Madge had never been a favourite with her mother. She knew that she had not done her duty by the child, whose helpless condition was a perpetual reproach; and she disliked her accordingly. It annoyed her when people asked for Madge; and she would never allow her to be seen, if she could help it. While little Herbert was produced for admiration on every occasion, and all the money his mother could procure was lavished upon his dress and equipage, poor Madge seldom stirred from her room on the third floor, except when kind-hearted Mary carried her down into the back veranda, for a little air, while her mother was out shopping or visiting.

But Madge had found a friend in Fanny Cutler, who lived next door and took a warm interest in the poor, lonely little sufferer, from the first day that she made her acquaintance over the back fence. The Cutlers were by far the richest and most fashionable people in the neighbourhood, and Agnes did not care to offend them: so Fanny was allowed free access to the nursery, as Madge's room continued to be called.

Fanny was a kind-hearted, sensible girl, who had been well brought up by a painstaking mother. She understood all sorts of needlework, plain and ornamental; and she taught Madge the use of needles and knitting-pins, with which the poor child beguiled many a weary hour. Fanny had lately become interested in a sewing-school established by the directresses of the "Home;" and Madge was never weary of hearing of the sayings and doings of the children.

"How I wish I could do something for the poor little things!" said she, one day. "I would not so much mind being sick, if I could only do any thing to help other people."

"Suppose we let Madge prepare the patchwork," said Mrs. Cutler, when her daughter repeated Madge's remark. "You can soon show her how. It will be easy work for her, and will really take a great deal off our hands, while at the same time it will afford her the pleasure of making herself truly useful."

Badge was delighted with the idea, and soon learned to fit and baste the pieces with required accuracy. A great deal of patchwork was needed; for the school was large and contained many new beginners.

It happened one day that Madge received the now rare pleasure of a morning visit from her father. She was surrounded by piles of pieces of all sorts and qualities, and had no time to put them away.

"And what is all this for?" asked Joseph. "Have you grown tired of your worsted-work and taken to piecing bed-quilts?"

"It is for the sewing-school," replied Madge, not without fear and trembling; for she was never certain of her father's mood. "Mrs. Cutler and Fanny have classes, and I am basting the patchwork for them. The children are all very poor, and have no work of their own, you know," she continued, timidly watching her father's face as she spoke; "and it is so nice to feel that I am helping somebody."

"Poor child!" said her father, abruptly. "I wonder where you got your disposition?"

"You don't mind: do you, father?" asked Madge.

"Mind! No, child! Any thing to amuse you. You may have this to buy something for your poor children," said he, throwing a ten-dollar note into her hands. "Better it should go that way than in buying things to—" He did not finish his sentence.

[Illustration: _Opposite Neighbours._ "Poor child! I wonder where you got your disposition?"

"There! I have at least done one good thing to-day," he said, as he descended the stairs.

Agnes grudged every penny bestowed upon Madge, regarding it as so much taken from Herbert, who, she declared, had hardly decent clothes to wear. If Madge was so fond of sewing, she might work for her little brother. She was sure embroidering and braiding his dresses and petticoats was prettier work, and ought to be much more agreeable to her sisterly feelings, than sewing for a parcel of children who were no-way related to her.

And, besides, Agnes had a special spite towards the Home because Letty was one of the managers. Madge's charitable labours would have come to an untimely end but for her father's interference. He declared the child should work at what she liked and for whom she liked.