XI
Of making many books there is no end.
Ecclesiastes xii., 12.
XI.
MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT MAKES A DISCOVERY
H. H. Hardwill, Publisher – Criminal Literature – Alliterative Titles – Goldwood – Poor Authors – A Heaven for them in the Perspective – Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma.
Mortimer looked up and read the sign – "H. H. Hardwill, Publisher." His heart half-failed him, and he stood looking in the large, book-filled window, with that romance which was to startle the literary world folded quietly under his arm, like any common paper. What kind of a man is Mr. Hardwill? he thought. Is he a large man, with a heavy watch-chain, or a thin, sky-rockety piece of humanity, dressed in black, and tipped off with red hair? Was he a cold, cast-iron man, like Flint? or a simple, sorrowful one, like Snarle that was? But this last idea melted of itself. How could the famous publisher resemble the poor, unobtrusive Snarle? He, Mr. Hardwill, who received notes from the great Hiawatha, and hob-nobbed with Knickerbocker Irving; he, who owned a phial of yellow sand, which had been taken from a scorching desert with an unpronounceable name, and presented to him by the Oriental Bayard; he, who chatted with genial Mr. Sparrow-grass – God bless him! – (Sparrow-grass,) and joked with Orpheus Stoddard, – he like simple Snarle? Pooh!
"Is Mr. Hardwill in?" asked Mortimer. He came near adding, "the great publisher."
The clerk, to whom his eyes looked, said he believed he was, and went on calling off from a slip of paper:
"'Murdered Milkmaid,' two copies; 'Bloody Hatchet,' twelve copies; 'The Seducer's Victim,' thirty copies; 'The Young Mother,' five copies; 'The Deranged Daughter,' seven copies; 'Hifiluten and other poems,' one copy."
"Can I speak with him?" ventured Mortimer, as the clerk, who was calling off the criminal literature, paused for breath.
"'The Merry Maniacs,' ten copies – Yes, sir; but he's engaged. Wait awhile," continued the clerk, as Mortimer turned to go. "'The Wizard of Wehawkin,' six copies; 'The Phantom of Philadelphia,' twelve copies, etc., etc."
So our author seated himself on a case of books, and looked at the wall of volumes which encompassed him. Somehow or another, it suggested the Great Wall of China and the Cordilleras. He could give no reason why. No more can I. Perhaps he felt that light literature, paradoxical as it may seem, is always heavy, and so his mind ran on the prodigious freaks of man and nature.
After the clerk had finished calling off from the slip of paper, that promising young gentleman suddenly discovered that Mr. Hardwill was not engaged, and offered to conduct our friend into his august presence. Mortimer gathered up his heart, as it were, and his loosened manuscript at the same moment – "Her heart and morning broke together!" – and followed the clerk through an avenue of literature, to a snug inner office – that literary Sebastopol, which is forever being stormed by seedy poets and their allies, historians, romancers, and strong-minded Eves.
Could it be possible?
Was that middle-sized, dark-eyed, light-haired, pleasant-looking man the Napoleon of publishers? However, there was something shrewd in his dark eye, or rather eyes – for he had two of them – and a certain expression of the mouth, which seemed full of dealings with the world.
"Is this Mr. Hardwill?" asked Mortimer.
"Yes, sir. Will you be seated?"
"I have a romance," commenced Mortimer, with hesitation, "which I would offer you for publication. I have written it carefully, and I think it possesses several new features – "
Here his voice broke down, for he felt those dark, scrutinizing eyes in his face; besides, the intense attention with which he was listened to disconcerted him. Mr. Hardwill came to his relief.
"What is the title of your book?"
"It is called 'Goldwood.'"
"That is not happy."
"No?"
"No," said Mr. Hardwill, "it should be something striking – something to catch the eye in an advertisement. For instance, the – the – "
"Frantic Father," suggested Mortimer, quietly; and he gazed at the carpet to keep from smiling.
Mr. Hardwill eyed him, and displayed his white teeth. There was a little satire in our author's remark which pleased Mr. H., who could not be hired to read the spasmodic books which he published. It was policy in him to cater for that largest class of readers whose tastes are morbid or inflamed, and he did so.
Mortimer had thrown aside his timidity. He gave a concise sketch of the plot, touching here and there on some supposed-to-be felicitous incident, and grew so autorially eloquent over his romance, that the careful Mr. Hardwill requested Mortimer to leave his manuscript with him, saying:
"I cannot give you much hope. I have more books ready for press than I can well attend to. If you will call on me the latter part of next week, you shall have my decision."
With these words, spoken in an off-hand, business-like way, Mr. Hardwill made a bow, which said, as kindly as such a thing can be said, "You needn't stay any longer."
Mortimer returned his bland smile frankly, and retired, though he would fain have called Mr. Hardwill's attention to that delightful and exciting scene in which Mr. Adine St. Clair meets Arabella Clementina after an estrangement of two weeks! but he didn't. He again threaded his way through the labyrinth of literature, and the last sound which fell on his ear, as he turned from the book-store into the street, was,
"'The Ruined Cigar Girl,' twenty copies!"
"What on earth could anybody want of a 'Ruined Cigar Girl,' or a 'Young Mother?'" and Mortimer laughed outright.
The wand of Prospero is neither more cunning nor more powerful than the pen of a well bred author. It creates something out of nothing, (more frequently nothing out of something), changes time, place, and human nature; it lifts up the blue roofing of ocean, and gives you a glimpse of fish-life; and deeper still, shows you the coral forests of the Naiads, and their aquatic palaces. It draws back the curtain of cloud-land, and feeds your fancy with forms that never have been, and never will be; summons spirits from the air, and gives melodious voices to all vernal things.
Pleasant magician that waves this wand! what curious people are walking in the chambers of your brain! What dreams are yours, and what cruel cuts this real world sometimes gives you! You have no right to be here, poor devil! You are somewhat misplanted; you belong to some sphere between earth and heaven, and not very near either. That such a place is provided for you I am certain. There it is that all your books will run through countless editions; there it is you can afford to hire some one to write your autograph for besieging admirers, and feed, as you should,
"On the roses, and lay in the lilies of life."
But I was speaking of pen-magic. It is not my present mood to do anything fantastical in that way. I only wish to give you a sight of Mr. Flint, as he appeared one afternoon some months after Mortimer had left his office. He was standing in that inner-room of his counting-house to which I have introduced the reader. I change my mind – he was not standing. He had just thrown himself into a chair, in which he did not seem at all easy.
I take peculiar delight in placing Mr. Flint in uncomfortable positions.
He was surprised, alarmed, and angry. He missed the forged check and the morocco case which he had watched so many years. That they had been purloined, he could not doubt, and his keen thought fell on Mortimer. The loss of the check troubled him; he liked to look at it occasionally, for Snarle's sake; but the necklace – that gave him strange alarm.
"Snake!" he hissed, "you have crawled into my affairs, and I'll tread on you – tread on you and kill you! You stole the check to save Snarle's name; and the necklace – why did you steal that? Was it valuable? Yes, that is it. I'll grind you in the dust. I'll put you in a prison, and let your brainless father look at you through the bars!"
This humane idea caused Mr. Flint to rub his dry hands, and chuckle violently.
"But" – here Mr. Flint's countenance fell. "If I do this, won't Walters ruin me with that unfortunate letter? O, I was a fool to write it; yet he would have murdered me if I had not."
And Mr. Flint thought and thought.
To obtain the letter was impossible. Walters might have left the city; even if he had not, there was a method in his madness which Flint knew he could not circumvent. He could not lose such a chance of crushing Mortimer as presented itself; and yet to attempt it while Walters had possession of the letter was unwise.
Mr. Flint was in a brown study.
He walked up and down his sanctum solemnly, neglecting to watch Tim and the book-keeper who had succeeded Mortimer. An half hour passed, and still he continued his walk and reverie, without any visible intention of stopping. His face lights up; he rubs his knuckles with ecstacy. He has got it! got it at last. He will have Mortimer arrested; he will have Mortimer's name suppressed, or give the newspapers a fictitious one. This will shield him from Walters, whose heart he will wring some of these days. Ah! that will be revenge.
It may strike the ingenious reader as strange that Mortimer, having charge of Flint & Snarle's books, never came across his father's name. This would have been the case, and somewhat interfered with our novel, if Mortimer, when he applied for a clerkship with the firm, had not given Mr. Flint all the particulars of his life. For reasons best known to himself, Mr. Flint took every opportunity to strengthen Mortimer in the belief of his father's death, and every precaution to keep Walters from meeting him. Once, indeed, they stood face to face in the office; but, taking into consideration the number of years they had been separated, and the circumstances under which they met, it would have been most strange if a recognition had taken place. As to Mr. Snarle, being profoundly ignorant of Mortimer's early history, he could throw no light on Mortimer's mind; and everything worked to Flint's satisfaction. Every circumstance seemed to mould itself to his will.
There is an evil spirit, and a very powerful one, that holds the wires which move some of us puppets. The good are made to take the humblest seats in the world's Synagogue, and the wily and the evil-hearted are clothed in purple, fed on honey, and throned in the highest places. There will be a surprising revolution some of these times.
As Mr. Sparrow-grass would say, a revolution is "a good thing to have in the country."
XII
Why, true, her heart was all humanity,
Her soul all God's; in spirit and in form,
Like fair. Her cheek had the pale, pearly pink
Of sea-shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though
She lived, one-half might deem, on roses sopped
In silver dew; she spoke as with the voice
Of spheral harmony which greets the soul,
When, at the hour of death, the saved one knows
His sister angel's near: her eye was as
The golden pane the setting sun doth just
Imblaze, which shows, till heaven comes down again,
All other lights but grades of gloom; her dark,
Long rolling locks were as a stream the slave
Might search for gold, and searching find.
Festus.
XII.
WHAT DAISY DID
The Arrest – Doubt and Love – Daisy and the Necklace – The Search – The heart of Daisy Snarle.
In an upper room of a miserable, dingy house which faced the spot where the old Brewery used to stand, Edward Walters sat one January evening reading the Express. There was one paragraph among the city items which he had read several times, and each reading seemed to strengthen a determination which had, at the first perusal, grown up with him.
"Right or wrong, I'll do it!"
With which words he folded the paper, and placed it in his pocket.
Daisy, too, read the paragraph that night, and the blood rushed into her cheeks, then left them very pale.
It was simply a police report – such as you read over your morning coffee, without thinking how many hearts may be broken by the sight of that little cluster of worn-out type. A young man, no name given, recently a clerk in the house of Messrs. Flint & Snarle, had been arrested on the charge of stealing a case of jewels from his employers.
Daisy, with dry eyes, read it again and again. Dark doubt and trusting love were at conflict for a moment; for doubt had pride for its ally, and love was only love. But the woman conquered. Mortimer, who had been arrested early in the forenoon, found means to send Daisy a note, in which he simply said – "I am charged with stealing the necklace, but I am as guiltless of the crime as you, Daisy."
Mrs. Snarle came in the room while our little heroine held the note in her hand.
"Mother," said Daisy, averting her head, "Mortimer will not come home to-night."
With this she threw the note into the fire, and left Mrs. Snarle alone, before the good lady asked any questions.
"That's very odd!" soliloquized Mrs. Snarle, briefly.
"You tell me that you are innocent," said Daisy, looking at a small portrait of Mortimer which hung over the fire-place – "I do not question, I only believe you!"
And then Daisy did a very strange thing, and yet it was very like Daisy. She untied the brown ribbon which bound her dark lengths of hair, allowing them to fall over her shoulders; then she braided the string of pearls with her tresses, and brought the whole in a beautiful band over her forehead. And she looked like a little queen with this coronal of jet and pearl shading her brows.
Daisy next picked the jewel-case to pieces, and threw the minute shreds into the street. This was scarcely done, when the door-bell rang impatiently.
The girl peeped from the window.
The two men at the door-step were not to be mistaken. Daisy's fingers trembled as she undid the fastenings of the door.
"We have orders to search this house, miss," said one of the officers, touching the vizor of his cap respectfully.
Daisy choked down a sob, and led them with an unnatural calmness from room to room.
Every place in the little house was investigated, but in vain; no necklace was to be found. Yet twice the breath of one of the searchers fell on the pearls in Daisy's hair. The two officers left the house in evident chagrin.
When they had gone, the girl sat on the stairs and sobbed.
Happily for her wishes, Mrs. Snarle had been absent during the search; and thus far had been kept in ignorance of Mortimer's disgrace. But Daisy could not hope to keep it a secret from her long, for they both would probably be summoned as witnesses in open court. The thought of giving evidence against Mortimer went through Daisy's heart like an intense pain. It terrified her, and her warm little heart was floating on tears all day.
The cloud which had fallen on her seemed to have no silver lining; all was cold, black and sunless. But there is no mortal wound to which some unseen angel does not bring a balm —
"There are gains for all our losses!"
Daisy remembered Mortimer's words: "Promise that you will not doubt me, whatever may occur in connection with this necklace – that you will love me, though I may be unable to explain condemning circumstances, or dispel the doubts of others" – and the words came to her freighted with such hope and tenderness, that her sleep that night was deep and refreshing. Doubt had folded its wings in the heart of Daisy Snarle.
XIII
Ludwick. —Now here's a man half ruined by ill luck,
As true a man as breathes the summer air.
Launcelot. —Ill luck, erratic jade! but yesterday
She might have made him king!
Old Play.
XIII.
IN THE TOMBS
The Author's Summer Residence – The Egyptian Prison – Without and Within – A Picture – Sunshine in Shadow – Joe Wilkes and his unique Proposal – Gloomy Prospects – The face at the cell-window.
There is not a pleasanter place in the world for a summer residence than Blackwell's Island! The chief edifices are substantial, and the grounds are laid out with exceeding care. The water-scape is delightfully invigorating, and the sojourners at this watering-place are not of that transient class which one finds at Nahant, Newport, and other pet resorts. Indeed, it is usual to spend from six to eight months on the "Island," and one has the advantage of contracting friendships which are not severed at the first approach of the "cold term" – for the particulars of which "cold term," see that funny old savant of Brooklyn Heights, who has a facetious way of telling us that it has been raining, after the shower is over. – Bless him!
Such institutions as "Blackwell's Island" are godsends to the literati. A poor devil of an author, who has a refined taste for suburban air, but whose finances preclude his dreaming of Nahant, has only to mix himself up in a street fight, or some other interesting city episode, to be entitled to a country-seat at the expense of his grateful admirers! Owing to a little oversight on his part, the author of this veracious history took a passage for "Blackwell's Island" a trifle earlier in the season than he had anticipated; and it is at that delightful region these pages are indited.
But the Tombs – heaven save us from that!
There are many pleasanter places in New-York than the Tombs; for that clumsy piece of Egyptian architecture – its dingy marble walls, its nail-studded doors and sickening atmosphere – is uncommonly disagreeable as a dwelling. Many startling tragedies have been enacted there – scenes of eternal farewells and lawful murders. I could not count on my fingers the number of men who have entered its iron gates full of life, and come out cold, still and dreadful!
It was here that Mortimer was brought.
Within, all was sombre and repulsive. Without, there was hum of voices, and the frosty rails which ran in front of the prison creaked dismally as the heavy freight cars passed over them; but these sounds of life were not heard inside.
The cell of Mortimer and its occupants, the morning after his arrest, presented a scene of gloomy picturesqueness.
Through a grated window, some six feet from the stone floor, a strip of sunshine came and went, falling on Mortimer, who leaned thoughtfully against the damp wall. The room, if we may call it one, was devoid of furniture, with the exception of a low iron bedstead, whose straw-stuffed mattress and ragged coverlid suggested anything but sleep. Daisy Snarle was standing with downcast eyes near the door which a few minutes before had closed on its creaking hinges, and outside of which the jailor stood listening.
The long, dark lashes were resting on her cheek; the pearls of the necklace, which gleamed here and there in the queenly braid, looked whiter by contrast with Daisy's chestnut hair. In one hand she had gathered the folds of her shawl, the other hung negligently at her side. From beneath the skirt of her simple dress, peeped one of the loveliest feet ever seen, and her whole attitude was unconsciously exquisite. She had just ceased speaking, and the faintest possible tinge of crimson was on her cheeks.
"Daisy, you are one of God's good angels, or you would never have come to me in this repulsive place."
Daisy's eyes were still bent on the floor.
"Speak to me again, Daisy," said Mortimer, taking her hand. "Your voice gives me heart, and your words make me forget everything but you."
Daisy lifted her dreamy hands, and said, softly: – "They could not find it."
"Could not find what, Daisy?"
"The necklace," said Daisy, smiling.
"No," she continued, in a low, musical voice, "they searched in all the rooms, in all the trunks – turned over your papers and mother's work-basket – but they could not find it."
And Daisy smiled again.
"Where was it, Daisy?"
"Here!"
And Daisy, smiling all the while, lifted Mortimer's hand in hers, and placed it on the braid of hair.
Mortimer started.
"O, Daisy! Daisy! why did you do that?"
The little foot tapped gently on the stone floor.
"Because," said Daisy, dropping her eyes, "because, when I read your note yesterday, I doubted you for a moment: but when I looked at the portrait in your room, I believed you; and I hid the necklace in my hair, and came to ask your pardon."
"Let any misfortune come to me, darling!" said Mortimer, touched with this ingenious act, "let come what will, I am strong! As sure as little Bell looks down from Heaven, you do not wear a stolen necklace. How it came into my hands I cannot tell, without wronging the dead. But, Daisy, it was imprudent for you to run this risk."
"Oh, no; they hunted for something hidden, and could not see what was before their eyes," replied Daisy, giving a quick, low laugh, and then she grew thoughtful again.
"But if they had seen it, Daisy?"
"Well."
"You would have been implicated in this unhappy affair to your certain ruin, without benefiting me. You must leave the necklace here."
"But I won't!"
This time the pretty little foot was set firmly on the flagging.
The jailor, who had been an attentive listener to the foregoing conversation, thrust his hands into the capacious pockets of his overcoat with the bearing of a man who is completely satisfied.
"I knowed it," he said, emphatically; "the boy is misfortunate somehow, and the young girl's a trump —she is. Lord help 'em! But time's up, and I must stop their talk."
With this the man tapped on the door. Mortimer held Daisy in his arms for a moment, and then sat down on the bed.
Daisy was gone, and it seemed as if the sunlight had gone with her, the cell grew so gloomy to the prisoner.
"Young man," said the jailor, with a solemn look, "the young lady is very unprudent to go circumventing round with that necklace twisted up on the top ov her skull —she is."
Mortimer groaned.
"You heard all, then, and you will betray us!"
"Part ov what you say is true," returned the man, bluntly, "and part isn't. I heard yer talk, but my name isn't Joe Wilkes ef I blow on yer!"
Mortimer looked at the ruddy, honest face of Joe Wilkes, and gave him his hand.
"I believe you, my good man."
That individual appeared to be turning something over in his mind which refused to be turned over.
"Them keys, young man," he said at length, drawing forth from his pocket a bunch weighing some four pounds, "opens the door at the end ov the passage, and this one opens the street gate; now jist take that bit ov wood and bang me on one side ov my hed – not savagely, you know, but jist enough to flatten me, and make me look stunned – like – "
At this novel proposition Mortimer broke into a loud laugh, but Mr. Wilkes was in earnest, and insisted on being "flattened."
"I couldn't think of it, Mr. Wilkes!" cried Mortimer, weak with laughter; "I couldn't strike you systematically; I should be certain to demolish your head."
And Mr. Wilkes retired, perforce, with the air of an injured man.
Mortimer sat on the edge of the bed reflecting on the strange chain of circumstances which had placed him in his present position, and boldly facing the fact of how little chance he had of escaping Mr. Flint's malice. The excitement attending his arrest had passed away, and the reality of his utter helplessness came full upon him. For himself he dreaded little, for no punishment for a supposed crime, however disgraceful, could make him guilty; but a prolonged imprisonment would leave Daisy and Mrs. Snarle without means of support. This caused him more anxiety than the thought of any suffering attendant on his conviction.
More than this troubled him. It was Daisy's devotion. He had, indeed, wished her to believe him innocent, but his generous mind revolted at holding her to promises made in happier moments. He could not make Daisy his wife while a blemish remained on his honor; and the circumstances relative to the forged check, with which the reader is conversant, he could not think of revealing, for Snarle's dying words haunted him strangely.
While Mortimer was thus meditating, two hands grasped the iron bars of the window, which was directly opposite the bed, and a moment afterwards a man's head threw a shadow into the cell.
Mortimer, absorbed in thought, had failed to notice it.
The first expression of the face was that of mere curiosity; this was followed by a startled look, and then an intense emotion distorted the features. The face grew deathly pale, and the eyeballs glowed into the cell, more resembling those of a wild-cat than a human being's.
A deep groan came from the window, and the head disappeared instantaneously.
Mortimer looked up and glanced around the narrow room suspiciously, and then smiled to think how his fancy had cheated him.
The face was Edward Walters.4348