The Witches of New York Part 15

The language she used, when freed from the technical phrases of her trade, was good enough for every day, and she did not distinguish herself by any specialty of bad English.

She asked her customer, with her most insinuating smile, if he would have her "run the cards for him," and on receiving an affirmative answer she took the pack of playing cards into her velvet hands, pawed them dexterously over a few times to shuffle them, laid them in three rows with the faces upward, and softly purred the following words:

"I am uncertain whether to run you a club or a diamond, for I do not exactly see how it is; but I will run you a club first, and if you find that it does not tell your past history, please to mention the fact to me, and I will then run you a diamond."

She then proceeded to mention a number of fict.i.tious events which she a.s.serted had happened in the past life of her listener, but that individual, who did not find that her revelations agreed with his own knowledge of his former history, tremblingly informed her of that fact; and she then, with a most vicious contraction of the overhanging eyebrows, broke short the thread of her fanciful story, and proceeded to "run him a diamond."

She evidently was determined to make the diamond come nearer the truth-to which end she dexterously strove by a series of very sharp cross-questionings to elicit some circ.u.mstance of his early history, on which she might enlarge, or to get some clue to his present circ.u.mstances, and hopes, and aspirations, that she might find some peg on which to hang a prediction with an appearance of probability. The Individual-with humiliation he confesses it-was a bachelor. His heart had proved unsusceptible, and Cupid had hitherto failed to hit him. On this occasion he proved characteristically unimpressible; and the insinuating smile, the inquiring look, and the winning manner, all failed of effect, and he remained pertinaciously non-committal.

Finding this to be the case, the feline Madame changed her tactics, and, as if to spite her intractable customer, began to prophesy innumerable ills and evils for him. She apparently strove to mitigate, in some degree, the sting of her predictions by an increased softness of manner, which was only a more cat-like demeanor than ever. She spoke as follows-the cold eye growing more cruel, and the wicked smile more treacherous every instant. First, however, came this guileful question, which was but a declaration of war under a flag of truce:

"You do not want me to flatter you, do you? You want me to tell you exactly what I see in the cards, do you not?" The customer stated that he was able to bear at least the recital of his future adversity, even if, when the reality came, he should be utterly smashed; whereupon she proceeded:

"I see here a great disappointment; you will be disappointed in business, and the disappointment will be very bitter and hard to bear-but that is not all, nor the worst, by any means. I see a burial-it may be only a death of one of your dearest friends, or some near relative, such as your sister, but I see that you yourself are weak in the chest and lungs; you are impulsive, proud, ambitious, and quick-tempered, which last quality tends much to aggravate any diseases of the chest, and I fear that the burial may be your own. Your disease is serious, you cannot live long, I think-I do not think you will live a year-in fact, there is the strongest probability that you will die before nine months. I think you will certainly die before nine months, but if you survive, it will only be after a most severe and painful illness, in the course of which you will undergo the extreme of human suffering. I see that you love a light-complexioned lady, but her friends object to her marriage with you, and are doing all they can to prevent it. A dark-complexioned man is trying to get her away from you; you must beware of him or he will do you great injury, for he has both the will and the power; he has already deceived and injured you, and will do so again even more deeply than he has yet. I see a journey, trouble, and misfortune, grief, sorrow, heavy loss, and heaviness of heart. I again tell you that you will die before nine months; but if you chance to survive, it will only be to encounter perpetual crosses and misfortunes. I might, if I was disposed to flatter you and give you false hopes, tell you that you will be lucky, fortunate in business, that you will get the lady, and I might promise you all sorts of good luck, but I don't want to flatter you; it would be much more agreeable to me to tell you a good life, for it sometimes pains me more than I can tell you to read bad lives to people, and I feel it very deeply; but I a.s.sure you that I never saw anybody's cards run as badly as do yours-I never saw so many losses and crosses, and so much trouble and misfortune in anybody's cards in my whole life-even if you outlive the nine months you will have the greatest trouble in getting the lady, and will always have bad luck."

She then tried by means of the cards to spell out the Inquirer's name, but failed utterly, not getting a single letter right; then she recommenced and threatened him with so much bad luck that he began almost to fear that he would break his leg before he rose from his chair, or would instantly fall down in a fit and be carried off to die at the Hospital. She told him that his lucky days were the 1st, 5th, 17th, 27th, and 29th of every month. Then perceiving that his feelings were deeply moved by the intractability of the "cruel parients" of the light-complexioned lady, and the black look of things generally, she slightly relented, and went on to say:

"If you will put your trust in me, and take my advice as a friend, I can sell you something that will surely secure you the lady, and thwart all your enemies-it is not for my interest that I tell you this, for upon my honor I make only five s.h.i.+llings upon fifty dollars' worth-it is no trick, but it is a charm which you must wear about you, and which you must wish over about the girl at stated times, and it will be sure to have the desired effect."

The customer asked the price of this wonderful charm.

"It is from five to fifty dollars, but as you are so extraordinarily unlucky I would advise you to take the full charm. It is the _Chinese Ruling Planet Charm_, and I import it from China at great expense. You must wear it about you, and every time you use it you must do it in the name of G.o.d; so you see there can be no demon about it. By means of this charm I have brought together husbands and wives who have been apart for three years, and I say a woman who can do that is doing good, and there is no demon about her. While you wear it you will not die or meet with bad luck, but it will change the whole current of your life."

She then told her unlucky hearer to make a wish and she would tell him by the cards whether he could have it or not. The answer was in the negative, and it was evident that nothing but the _Chinese Ruling Planet Charm_ would save him, and no less than $50 worth of that. So the smiling Madame returned to the charge.

"If you will take my advice as a friend, take the charm; it is for your sake only that I say this, for I make nothing by it-but I feel an interest in you, and I wish you would buy the charm for my sake as well as your own, for I want to see its effect on a fortune so bad as yours. If you don't buy it, and all kinds of ill-fortune befalls you, don't say I didn't warn you, and don't call Madame Clifton a humbug; but if you do buy it, you may be sure that you will ever bless the day you saw Madame Clifton."

It is, perhaps, needless to state that the Individual didn't have with him the fifty dollars to pay for the charm, but intimated that he would call again, after he got his year's salary.

She then said: "If you happen to call when I am engaged, tell the girl to say that you want to see me about _medicine_, and I will see you, for I never put off anybody who wants _medicine_, no matter who is with me, say _medicine_, and I will see you instantly." Here she softly showed her visitor to the door, and smiled on him until he stood on the outside steps. He then departed, secretly wondering what kind of "medicine" she was prepared to furnish in case any unlooked for occasion should suggest a second call. Her last remark suggested that Madame Clifton derives a larger profit from the peculiar kinds of "_medicine_" she deals in, than from all her other witchery.

CHAPTER XVI.

Details the particulars of a morning call on Madame Harris, of No. 80 West 19th Street, and how she covered up her beautiful head in a black bag.

CHAPTER XVI.

MADAME HARRIS, No. 80 WEST 19TH STREET, NEAR SIXTH AVENUE.

Madame Harris is one of the most ignorant and filthy of all the witches of New York. She does not depend entirely on her "astrology" for her subsistence, but relies on it merely to bring in a few dollars in the spare hours not occupied in the practice of the other dirty trades by which she picks up a dishonest living. She has a good many customers, and in one way and another she contrives to get a good deal of money from the gullible public. She has been engaged in business a number of years, and has thriven much better than she probably would, had she been employed in an honester avocation.

The "Individual" paid her a visit, and carefully noted down all her valuable communications; he has told the whole story in the words following:

We all believe in Aladdin, and have as much faith in his uncle as in our own; but we don't know the pattern of his lamp, we have no photograph of the genii that obeyed it, and we can make no correct computation of the market value of the two hundred slaves with jars of jewels on their heads. The customer, who is determined that posterity shall be able to make no such complaint of him or of his history, here solemnly undertakes, upon the faith of his salary, to relate the unadorned truth, and to indulge in no _ad libitum_ variations-imagining, while he writes, that he sees in the distance the critical public, like a many-headed Gradgrind, singing out l.u.s.tily for "Facts, sir, facts."

The next fact, then, to be investigated and sworn to, is this Madame Harris, a very dirty female fact indeed, residing in the upper part of the city, and advertising as follows:

"MADAME HARRIS.-This mysterious Lady is a wonder to all-her predictions are so true. She can tell all the events of life. Office, No. 80 West 19th-st., near 6th-av. Hours 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ladies 25 cts.; Gentlemen 50 cts. She causes speedy marriages; charge extra."

Wearily the inquirer plodded his way on foot to West 19th Street, fearing to trust himself to a stage or car, lest the careless conversation of the unthinking, and the reprehensible jocularity of the little boys who hang about the corners of the streets which intersect the Sixth Avenue, and pelt unwary pa.s.sengers with paving-stones, should divert his mind from the importance and great moral responsibility of his mission.

After encountering a large a.s.sortment of the dangers and discomforts incident to pedestrianism in New York in muddy weather, he achieved West 19th street, and stood in sight of the mysterious domicile of Madame Harris.

It is a tenement house, shabby-genteel even in its first pretentious newness; but it has now lost its former appearance even of semi-respectability, and has degenerated to a state of dirt only conceivable by those unhappy families who live two in a house, and are in a constant state of pot-and-kettle war, and of mutual refusing to clean out the common hall.

A little mountain of potato skins, and bones, and other kitchen refuse, round which he was forced to make a detour, plainly said to the traveller that the population of the house No. 80 were in the habit of depositing garbage in the gutters, under cover of the night, and in violation of the city ordinance. A highly-perfumed atmosphere surrounds this delightful abode, for the first floor thereof is occupied as a livery stable, which constantly exhales those sweet and pungent odors peculiar to equine habitations.

Pulling the sticky bell-handle with as dainty a touch as possible, the Individual was admitted by a slatternly weak-eyed girl of about eighteen, with her hair and dress as tumbled as though she had just been run through a corn-sh.e.l.ling machine, and who was so unnecessarily dirty that even her face had not been washed. She was further distinguished by a wart on her nose of such shape and dimensions that it gave her face the appearance of being fortified by a many-sided fort, which commanded the whole countenance.

This interesting young female welcomed her visitor with a clammy "Come in," and led the way up stairs, he following, in due dread of being for ever extinguished by an avalanche of unwashed keelers and kettles, which were unsteadily piled up on the landing, and which an incautious touch would have toppled over, and deluged the stairs with unknown sweet-smelling compounds, whose legitimate destination was the sewer. On the second floor, directly, judging from the noise, over the stall of the balkiest horse in the stable below, is the room of the Madame.

The customer took an observation:

The furnis.h.i.+ngs of the apartment showed an attempt to keep up a show, which was by far too miserably transparent to hide the slovenliness which peeped out everywhere through the tawdry gilding. There were so many oil paintings on the walls, in such gaudy frames, that it seemed as if the room had been dipped into a bath of cheap auction pictures, and hadn't been wiped dry, or had been out in a shower of them, and hadn't come in until it had got very wet. A broad gilt window cornice stood leaning in the corner of the room, instead of being in its legitimate place; a pair of lace curtains were wadded up and thrown in a chair, while the windows were covered with the commonest painted muslin shades; a piano-stool stood in the middle of the room, but there was no piano.

These were the indications of "better days;" these were the shallow traps set to inveigle the beholder into a belief in the opulence of the occupants of this charming residence.

But the little cooking-stove, on which two smoothing irons were heating, the sc.r.a.ps of different patterned carpets which hid the floor, and made it appear as if covered with some kind of variegated woollen chowder, the second-hand, conciliating please-buy-me look of the three chairs, and the dirt and greasy grime which gave a character to the place, told at once the true state of facts.

On one side of the room was a little door, evidently communicating with a closet or small bedroom; on this door was a slip of tin, on which was painted

+------------------------------------+ | | | Office.-Madam Harris, Astrologist. | | | +------------------------------------+

and into this "office" the weak-eyed girl disappeared, with a shame-faced look, as if she had tried to steal her visitor's pocket-book, and hadn't succeeded. Presently there came from the closet a sound of half-suppressed merriment, as if a constant succession of laughs were born there, full grown and boisterous, but were instantly garroted by some unknown power, until each one expired in a kind of choky giggle. There was also a noise of the making of a bed, the hustling of chairs, the putting away of toilet articles out of sight, and over all was heard the chiding voice of Madame Harris, who was evidently dressing herself, superintending these other various operations, and scolding the weak-eyed maiden all at once.

At last this latter individual got so far the better of her jocularity that she was able to deport herself with outward seriousness when she emerged from the mysterious closet, and said to the Individual, "Walk in." At this time she was under so great a head of laugh that she would inevitably have exploded, had she not, the instant her visitor turned his back, let go her safety-valve, and relieved herself by a guffaw which would have been an honor and a credit to any one of the horses on the first floor.

The room in which Madame Harris was waiting to receive her customer was so dark that he stumbled over a chair, and fell across a bed before he could see where he was. Then he recovered himself, and took an observation.

The room was a very small one-so diminutive, indeed, that the bed, which occupied one side of it, reduced the available s.p.a.ce more than two-thirds. It was part.i.tioned off from the rest of the room by a dirty patch-work bed-quilt, with more holes than patches. The walls were scrawled over with pencil-marks, evidently drawings made by young children, who had the usual childish notions of proportion and perspective; and on one side of the wall, near the head of the bed, a bit of pasteboard persisted in this startling announcement-

+----------------+ | tE_R_ms C_a_sH | +----------------+

A narrow strip of rag carpet was on the floor; a small stand and a chair completed the furnis.h.i.+ng of the room, and a single smoky pewter lamp exhausted itself in a dismal combat with the gloom, which constantly got the better of it.

When the Cash Inquirer stumbled, and took an involuntary leap into the middle of the bed, an awful voice came out of the dreariness, saying, "There is a chair right there behind you."

This information proved to be correct, and the discomfited delegate subsided into it, and gazed stolidly at the Madame. If Madame Harris were worth as much by the pound as beef, her market-price would be about twenty-five dollars. She was attired in a loose morning-gown, of an exceedingly flashy pattern, open before, disclosing a skirt meant to be white, but whose cleanliness was merely traditional. Of her countenance her visitor cannot speak, for it was carefully hidden from his inquiring gaze, and its unknown beauties are left to the imagination of the reader. Perched mysteriously on the back of her head, where it was retained by some feminine hocus-pocus, which has ever been a sealed mystery to _man_kind, was a little black bonnet, marvellous in pattern and design; from this depended a long black veil, covering her countenance, and disguising her as effectually as if she had washed her face and put on a clean dress.

She proceeded at once to business, and opened conversation with this appropriate remark: "My terms is fifty cents for gentlemen, and the pay is always in advance."

Here followed a disburs.e.m.e.nt on the part of the anxious seeker after knowledge, and an approving chuckle was heard under the veil.