Her rooms were furnished with a degree of splendor almost equal to the Morgans. Little did she suspect the character of the house, particularly as her husband had introduced her there.
But there was another cause why she lost her best customers. In a fashionable soiree, to which Walter still found his way occasionally, when questioned by a score of his old acquaintances, with whom he used to flirt, and every one of whom were envious and jealous of Athalia, they rallied him most unmercifully upon his marriage with a sewing girl, and then the base cowardly wretch--rum makes such of gentlemen--declared upon his honor that he was not married. It was only a marriage of convenience.
"A mistress--a mistress--oh! that alters the case. And only to think we have been getting the shameless thing to make our common dresses. Well, I never will go near her again."
"Nor I. Nor I. Nor I."
"And that accounts for what I heard the other day, that she was seen riding home with that Madame Layton, who keeps a house of a.s.signation in ---- street."
"How did she know that she kept such a house!"
It was Matilda Morgan, that said it. She had been there.
The train once lighted, which fires the dry prairie, how it sweeps on before the wind. It little regards who stand in the way. As little regards the slanderer, and as rapidly spreads the fire of a scandalous tongue, devouring its victims with a consuming fire.
Athalia was a victim. The man who should have been her shield, had himself thrown the first dart. It had been more envenomed by a pretended female friend, who had told her all that he said. She could have forgiven him everything else, she would not forgive him that. Things now looked dark. She was obliged to look for work among a cla.s.s of customers where nothing but the direst necessity would have led her. Her husband had tended bar, until his employer found that he drank up all the profits. Now he was drinking up the hard earnings of his wife. Then he began to stay out nights. Where, she could only guess. One day she sent him to pay the rent. It was the last money she had. About a week after, the landlord called for it. He had not seen Walter, had not been paid, and was very sorry for her, but he must have the rent.
"Would he wait a few days? she hoped her husband would pay it."
There was a curl of derision upon his lip. What could it mean?
"Fact is, Mrs. Morgan, or Miss Lovetree, or whatever your name is, I let the premises to you, and look to you for the rent. I shall not run after such a miserable drunken ---- as Walter Morgan."
She did not drop dead under this heavy blow; she simply said, "you shall have your rent to-morrow."
"Very well then; and you may as well look for a new place too, in the course of the week."
"I intend to," was her calm reply.
When he was gone, she slipt on her bonnet and shawl, and thought she would take her watch and ear-rings, and a few little things, where her husband had twice taken them before, and whence she had redeemed them, after he had spent the money; for money he would have, and if she did not give it to him, he would steal her things and p.a.w.n them. He had done so now. All was gone, even her large Bible, the present of her dying mother. Her only alternative was to get a Jew to come and look at the furniture, and advance enough to pay the rent. On the way she thought she would take a dress home, and got the money for that. She knew it was going to a house of bad repute; she had been obliged to work for such, and on several occasions Walter had carried them home. It was a sort of perquisite with him to get the pay for such. She looked for the dress, that too was gone. There was another to go to the same house, which she could finish in about an hour. It was her only resource for the necessities of to-morrow. At nine o"clock she took it upon her arm and went out, and with trembling step, up to the door of a magnificent house, only one block from Broadway.
As the door opened for her, half-a-dozen "up town bloods," came out.
"I say," said one of them, before he was out of her hearing, "I say, Fred, that is Walt. Morgan"s gal, let us go back and see the fun."
The voice was familiar, though the bloated countenance of the roue was not. She had heard it before. It was George Wendall.
"See the fun"--what could it mean? She felt like anything but fun. Is it fun for a man to see a woman"s heart broken?
They went on, Fred remarking, "she is dev"lish pretty; curse me if I don"t try my hand there. I will walk into her affections."
Such is the opinion of the roue--that the door of woman"s affections is always open for every self-conceited puppy to walk in.
Her heart was in her throat. She choked it down, and went in and inquired for Miss Nannette, and was shown up to her room. A gentleman was there, whom Nannette introduced as Mr. Smith, from the South.
He might be from the South, but Athalia knew him to be a married man, with a sweet young wife and two children, in this city.
The dress was to be tried on, and Nannette began to strip off without a blush. Athalia did blush, and did object, and would not stay.
"Well, then, George, go down a few minutes to the parlor, that is a good soul, she is so fastidious."
No, he did not want to be seen there; he would go home.
"Well, then, give me some money to pay for making this dress. You gave me the stuff, you might as well go the whole figure."
He handed her a ten dollar bill; she handed it to Athalia,--the dress was only five--remarking:
"Give him the change; I won"t take but a five out of it this time."
Athalia had no change. She looked at him, to be certain of her man, and remarked:
"No; I will keep the whole, and credit him the balance, on account of seven dollars he has owed me these two months, for work for his wife."
He stammered something about mistake--not him--cursed blunder--and left the room.
The dress fitted beautifully, and Athalia felt the soothing influence of praise for her work, and would have left happier than she came, but just then her ear caught a voice in the next room. She listened. A woman replied:
"Yes, if you have brought any money. I have made up my mind that you shall not stay in this room another night without you give me more money."
"Oh, Josephine, I have got something better than money for you. Look here."
"Oh! you are a dear good fellow, after all. What a pretty watch, and what a dear little locket. That will do. Now you may stay all night, and to-morrow we will go down to Coney Island again, and have a good time.
I"ll pa.s.s for your wife, you know."
There was a door opening out of Nannette"s room into a bath-room, and out of that, a window into the room where the voices came from.
It was but a thought; thoughts are quick, and so were her"s, and the step that took her up on a chair, and her hand up to the curtain, which was the only thing preventing her from seeing who owned that voice.
She looked. What a sight for a wife! She saw, what she knew before, but would be doubly sure, that the voice was her husband"s. She knew that--she knew that he was giving her watch, and the locket which contained the donor"s likeness, that of a dear brother lost at sea--a treasure that she would not part with sooner than her own heart--to a woman to whom he had before given money--money that came, drop by drop, distilled from her heart"s blood, through the alembic of her needle; and she would see--what woman would not--what wife could resist the opportunity of seeing?--she could not--what the woman looked like, who could displace her in her husband"s affections. The first sight she caught was her Bible upon the table.
"What could she want of that?"
She was sometimes religious--a great many of them are, and read the Bible to find some text to justify their own course. They are also visited by clergymen, who prefer those of "a religious turn of mind."
Then this Bible was elegantly bound, and very valuable. Then she saw her watch in the hands of a woman with ugly red hair, with dull, voluptuous eyes, thick lips, ugly teeth, a little snub nose, and a gaunt awkward figure, forming altogether one of the ugliest looking women, Athalia thought, that she had ever seen. The words burst involuntarily from her lips:
"Oh, how ugly!"
"She is uglier than she looks," said Nannette. "She has ruined more men than any other woman in the city. She has kicked that fool out half a dozen times because he did not give her more money. I should not wonder now, if he has stolen his wife"s watch to give that wretch."
And this was the woman that Athalia had been toiling for her husband to pamper. Oh, how she did pray to die!
Nannette, when she learned the facts, was furious. She would have gone in and torn her heart out.
She said she never did have anything to do with a married man, if she knew it. George had lied to her, and never should see her but once again--once, to get her blessing.
Athalia was calm. She sat down a few minutes, to recover from this last stab in the heart, and then said she would look once more and then go home. She did look, and saw her husband locked in the arms of that red-headed fury. Then she went home; she did not go to bed; she worked all night putting her things in order. Next day, at ten o"clock, a red flag was fluttering at her window, and while Walter and his mistress were going down the Bay, her furniture was "going, going, gone," to the highest bidder.
At sundown she was homeless, friendless, worse than husbandless, alone, in the streets of New York!