Vassall Morton Part 41

"For the next two months, I was in paradise. Then came a purgatory, or something worse. Her pa.s.sion for me subsided as quickly as it had arisen. She was herself again. Her vanity and artifice, her insatiable love of intrigue and adventure, returned with double force. I wore myself out with watching, vexation, and anxiety. She tried every means to attract attention and draw admirers, and every where she succeeded.

I remember that one night at Naples she insisted on going with me to the theatre of San Carlo, in the dress of a young man, and wearing a moustache. The disguise was detected, as she meant it should be, and eyes centred upon her from all the boxes. I tried to travel with her through remote and unfrequented countries, such as the interior of Sicily; but it was all in vain. There was no resisting her fiery will, and I was compelled to go wherever she wished.

"One afternoon, at Messina, at the _table d'hote_, we met a lively young Spanish n.o.bleman. She caught his eye; I saw them exchange glances. In spite of all my precautions, messages, billets, and momentary interviews pa.s.sed between them. I challenged the Spaniard, gave him a severe flesh wound, and thought I had taught him a lesson.

Not at all. On the next day, coming to my lodgings, I found her gone, no one could tell whither. I was desperate, and could have done any thing; but there was nothing to be done. I could not find her, and if I had it would have availed me nothing.

"I returned to America, wrought up to the verge of a nervous fever; and, by mingling in amus.e.m.e.nts of every kind, tried to forget her. In six or eight months I had partially succeeded. My health was not good, and I had made a journey of a few weeks to the west; when, on returning,--it was a sultry July afternoon,--I remember it as if it were yesterday,--sitting in the reading room window of the New York Hotel, I saw her pa.s.sing down Broadway in an open carriage; and, with the sight, my pa.s.sion awoke again at fever heat. She had left the Spaniard, and come to America with a New York gentleman, who had lived for some time in Paris. I had an interview with her, and she promised to join me again; but she broke her word. She saw at once what a power she still held over me; and she has used it most mercilessly ever since. She practises all her arts on me, as if I were a new lover, whom she wished to insnare. Sometimes she flatters me; sometimes she repels me; now and then she allows me stolen interviews, or long walks or rides with her. She plays me as an angler plays a salmon that he has hooked, till he brings him gasping to his death. I have plunged into dissipations of all kinds, to drown the memory of her. It is all useless. She knows the torments I am suffering, and she rejoices in them. Perhaps she remembers that it was I who made her what she is, and takes this for her revenge. But, pshaw!--if I had not eloped with her, some one else would have done so soon; and that she perfectly well knows. It is her vanity--nothing but her vanity: she delights to hold me in bondage; she knows that I am her slave, and she glories in it."

"But why, in Heaven's name," demanded Morton, "do you not break away from this miserable fascination?"

"There it is!" Buckland answered; "I only wish that I had the power. I have resolved twenty times to leave New York, and my resolution has failed me as often."

"Who takes charge of her now?"

"Colonel ----. He seems as crazy after her as I was."

"I can hardly comprehend," pursued Morton, "how, understanding her character as you do, you can still remain so infatuated with her."

"Neither can I comprehend it. I can only feel it. Strange--is it not?--that I, who used to be regarded as a mere flirt; who, as a lady acquaintance once told me, had a great deal too much sentiment, but no heart at all; I, who, in my time, have written love verses to twenty different ladies,--should be so enchained at last by this black-eyed witch!"

"Very strange."

"And now what would you recommend? what advice do you give me? You see in what a predicament I stand. What ought I to do?"

"With your broken health and weakened nerves," said Morton, "it is useless for you to attempt contending against this fancy that has taken possession of you. You must run away from it. Take a long voyage; the longer the better. I will go with you to engage your pa.s.sage to-morrow."

Buckland hesitated at first, slowly shaking his head; but in a moment he said, with some animation, "Yes, I will go, on one condition; you must promise to go with me."

The will, the motive power,--never very strong in him,--was now completely relaxed. He was unfitted for action of any kind, and was, as he himself said, no better than a sea weed drifting on the water.

Morton walked the streets with him for some hours. He seemed to cling to his companion, like an ivy to the supporting trunk, and was evidently reluctant to resign his company. At length, Morton, who was exhausted with the excitements of the day, pleaded fatigue, and bade him good night. He turned again, however, and, by the blaze of the gas lamps, followed with his eye Buckland's slowly receding figure.

"A few hours ago," he said to himself, "I thought myself unhappy; but what is my suffering compared to his? I am not, thank G.o.d, the builder of my own misfortunes, nor pursued with the reflection that they are a just retribution for my own misdeeds. With health, liberty, self-respect, and a good conscience, what man has a right to call himself miserable?"

CHAPTER LIII.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.--_Gray's Elegy_.

Mr. s.h.i.+ngles had an acquaintance among the gentlemen of the press; and, chancing to meet his quill-driving friend, he told him Morton's story. It appeared, accordingly, beautifully embellished, in one of the evening papers, and was copied, the next morning, into several others. Consequently, Morton had scarcely risen from breakfast, when he was visited by half a dozen persons, editors and others, eager to hear his adventures, for the gratification of their own curiosity, or that of the public. As he detested such visitations, and as several of his callers, from their countenances alone, inspired him with an earnest longing to kick them down stairs, he hastened to avoid the nuisance by escaping into the street. Since the tidings he had heard from s.h.i.+ngles, his native town had lost all attraction for him; in fact he shrank from going thither, and willingly lingered another day in New York.

Going to Buckland's lodgings, he renewed his persuasions of the evening before, and strongly urged him to leave New York. Buckland a.s.sented to every thing he said; and, hearing of a s.h.i.+p about to sail for the East Indies, Morton went with his friend to the merchant to whom she belonged, and induced him to engage a pa.s.sage in her.

Returning to his hotel at about two o'clock, a waiter brought him a card, telling him that a boy had just left it for him. It was Rosny's; and on it were scrawled with a pencil the following concise and characteristic words:--

Dear M.: Uncle Sam in a deuse of a hurry. Ordered to the island this afternoon. Off for Mexico to-morrow. Sorry not to see you, but haven't a minute to spare. Good luck.--_Au revoir._

Yours till doomsday, ROSNY.

Morton went to the recruiting office where he had been with Rosny on the day before, learned the time and place of the embarkation, was on the spot at the hour named, and in a few minutes saw Rosny striding down the wharf in most unmilitary haste, his hair fluttering in the wind. He was so engrossed in making certain arrangements, and issuing his mandates to the soldiers who were to row him and some other officers to Governor's Island, that he did not observe Morton, who stood quietly leaning against a post.

"Hallo, d.i.c.k," said the latter at length. "Haven't you eyes to see your friends?"

Rosny turned, in great surprise, and greeted him most emphatically.

"Come, Morton," he said, as he was stepping into the boat, "you'll change your mind after all,--won't you?--and meet me at Vera Cruz."

"I'll sit at home, and read your exploits in the papers," replied Morton.

"Well; a wilful man must have his way. Adieu."

"Good by. May you live to be a general, or any thing else you like, short of the presidency."

"Why, shouldn't I make a good president?"

"No."

"What? too progressive,--too wide awake,--too enlightened, ey?"

"Yes, and too pugnacious."

"There you are again, Boston all over. I'll be president yet, if only to spite the Bostonites. You shall write my life, and I'll give you an office for it. Farewell."

Morton watched the receding boat till it was almost out of sight, waved his hat to Rosny, who waved his own in return, and walked back to the hotel, wondering what would be the issue of his old cla.s.smate's ambitious schemes.

How, among a throng of brave men, Rosny gained a name for determined daring;--how, on every occasion that offered, he displayed the fire of the Frenchman, and the stubborn mettle of the Saxon, whose blood mingled in his veins;--how, though sick and wounded, he dragged himself from the hospital at Puebla, and, mounting his horse, pushed forward with the advancing columns;--how gallantly, under the murdering storm of musketry and grape, he led his intrepid blackguards up the rocks of Chapultepec;--how, while shouting among the foremost, he climbed the hostile rampart, a bullet plunged into his brain, and dashed him, quivering and dead, to the foot of the scaling ladders;--all this, and more likewise, is it not written in the New York Herald?

About a year after Rosny's departure, Morton chanced to be again in New York, when, in going out one morning, he beheld all the symptoms of some impending solemnity. Flags, festooned with c.r.a.pe, were strung across Broadway from building to building. The shops were half closed, and the streets were fast filling with people. Patriot citizens, exchanging the yardstick for the sword, strode the sidewalk in gorgeous panoply; and now and then a mounted warrior cantered along the pavement, struggling to keep his balance on his fiery coach horse.

In an hour or two more, the pageant was in full operation. Looking from his hotel window Morton beheld a radiant river of s.h.i.+ning bayonets, many colored plumes, and martial millinery, solemnly flowing down the middle of Broadway, to strange and lugubrious music, between melancholy sh.o.r.es of black broadcloth and beaver hats. At length a train of hea.r.s.es appeared slowly advancing to the wailing music of the bands, encircled by the harmless sabres of the civic warriors, playing soldier, around the remains of those who had borne the part in tragic earnest. Over every hea.r.s.e the national flag was drooping, and upon each was inscribed the name of its unconscious tenant. They were officers slain in battle during the last Mexican campaign. Four of the hea.r.s.es pa.s.sed. Morton read the names. They were all unknown to him; but as the fifth approached, he looked, started, and looked again; for wrought in white upon the sable drapery he saw, distinct and clear, the name of Rosny. Descending to the street, he joined the procession; he even underwent the funeral oration at the City Hall; and when it was over, shouldering through the crowd, he stood by the side of all that remained of his old cla.s.smate. Rosny's cap, and the sword he had used so well, lay on the lid of the coffin; and Morton turned away, with eyes not quite dry, as he recalled his many genial traits and his undaunted spirit.

To resume. On returning to his hotel after taking leave of Rosny, Morton found a note awaiting him, directed in a female hand. He opened it, and read the signature,--Ellen Ashland,--the name of a lady whom he had well known in Boston, and who, just before he had sailed for Europe, had been married to an eminent lawyer of his acquaintance. She wrote that she had seen an account of his escape from prison, and arrival in New York, in the morning paper,--expressed an earnest wish to see him, and invited him to visit her at the New York Hotel, where she was spending a few days with her husband.

As the time named was almost come, Morton called a coach, and drove up town. His friend received him with a peculiar warmth and earnestness of manner. Morton had known her as a person of marked character and strong but strictly governed emotions, not always permitting the expression of a feeling to keep pace with the feeling itself. He greatly liked and esteemed her, and her presence disarmed him, in a great degree, of his usual reserve.

Her husband had been absent all day in Brooklyn, and would not return till late in the evening.

"It is five years since I have spoken to a lady," said Morton, as he seated himself at the tea table.

As he was not scrupulous to wear a mask before her, she quickly discovered the depressed condition of his mind; and on her charging him with being very much out of spirits, he admitted that he was so.

"One would think," she observed, "that after the sufferings that you have pa.s.sed, you would have come home in a different mood of mind."

"And so I did," said Morton.

"You seem in no great haste to see your friends and relations in Boston."

"I have no near relations there."