In the market place

Front matter

UBRARY OF CONGRESS

□□DED4b3TEE

Class T

Table Of Contents

Chapter.

Definitions I

Principles op Pronunciation II

Book I. Chapter Page

I. Watching in the Market-Place 7

II. All Her Past with its Loves and Hate, its Sins and

Remorse 12

HI. Tanglewood 23

IV. Gartha Rowland 40

V. The Van Courts 57

VI. Laurance Carst 71

VII. The Music of the Magic Flute 86

VHI. Society at the Van Courts 104

IX. Madame Bogardus Meditates 122

X. Judge Van Court versus Nelson Lawrie 124

XI. To Pen one Word that would Give thee Pain,

Would be like Pricking thy Wounds afresh 134

XII. A Glimpse into the Future 161

XIII. The Insult to the Chef-’doeuvre 178

XIV. In which Society Returns to the City 185

XV. The Coming of Another Wedding 202

Book II

I. What Does He Say? We do not Know what He Says 210

TI, Her Wedding Day. 233

Contents,

CHAPTER PAGE

III. The Peace thatPasseth all Understanding 249

IV. The Gathering of a Dark Cloud 262

V. After the Governor’s Ball 279

VI. Society in a Flutter 291

VII. Sunrise 302

VIII. Peace Makers, and Peace Breakers 321

IX. Separated, But still Bound Together 833

Book III

I. Potipher John Gilphin 343

II. Snow-Ball Hill, in Elm Lane 351

III. His Thoughts came Quick and Fast and Flew over

the Years to the Great Tragedy of His Life 364

IV. Mrs. Barton Hamstead’s Reception 383

V. The 111 Winds that Blow Someone Good 403

VI. The Old Black Woman pushed her Hood back off

her Face, and Whispered “Massa” 435

VII. She Rose up, her Cheeks Aflame, and a Light as Cold as the Gleam of her Diamonds, flashed from

Her Eyes 448

VIII. Such are My Brethren, My Sisters and My Mother

(Luke viii) 465

IX. This Was the Man she Had Prophesied of 479

X. He Brushed Something Like a Tear from His Eyes. 490

XI. She Knew the Dying Woman was the Wife of

Potipher Gilphin’s Youth 505

Book IV

I. And Spread her White Jeweled Fingers Apart 517

II. He Said with a Voice Low with the Echoes of Passionate Despair. ^ ^ < 524

Contents.

CHAPTER PAGE

III. This Costly White Raiment was Nothing now but

Useless Rags 533

IV. We are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made of 545

V. Oh, Fair Lady, I am But a Merchant Man 558

VI. He Brushed his Hand Across his Brow to Shut out

the Vision 569

VII. The World of Fashion passes its Verdict on Happen-

ings Past and Present 584

VHI. This is the Love Thou Givest 591

IX. Watching Again in the Market Place 603

X. Where There is no Marriage, nor Giving in Marriage 607 f.

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CHAPTER I. WATCHING IN THl^ MARKE^T PTACE)

The: long, balmy, May day, had faded into the mellow lingering twilight of the spring evening, and now hung its mantle of gossamer shadows about the brick and stone buildings that rose upon all sides of the old Market Place, softening their harsh outlines, their dingy, grimy facades, that the rain and snow, the soot and smoke, of many winters had deepened into a slate gray. The Market Place stood to the north, down in the business heart of the old City of St. L. It fronted on Fifth and Sixth Streets. Fifth St. now called Broadway, one of the most fashionable thoroughfares of St. L., where all the large wholesale and retail dry goods houses rear their stately heights up into the violet tinted, misty atmosphere.

The shadows had crept and crept, until the electric lights flashed out over the streets, with their hustle and traffic. Over the heads of the people ; over men and women hurrying to and fro ; hither and thither, on their different ways. Over stalls filled with flowers sending out their perfume to greet the passers by,

In the Market Place.

Stalls loaded with all the rich, ripe fruits of spring and the early summer, that blended their varied colors, and took on all kinds of hues under the blue white flame of the lamps. There were young women with white aprons and saucy little white caps pinned on thick coils of brown hair, handing dishes of luscious strawberries to customers, their deep red mingling with the creamy ices. Also young men as picturesque as the girls, drawing cool foamy drinks from soda fountains. Booths where French Cafe au lait was served, and a lunch, of anything in the delicate line. Booths of fresh yellow butter, kept by two women, their faces grown saffron and wrinkled from long years standing in the Market Place, still had something of the Betty Higdon type, in a certain kindly expression blending with their hard shrewdness. There were large stalls of all kinds of fish, vegetables, meat and game.

As the evening advanced the people became more numerous, men and women of all nations and climes, of every age, type, shade and condition in life, which go to make up the great masses. Young mechanics with their sweethearts out for a jaunt, to wind up with a lunch in some of the many booths. Also actors, actresses and singers in the Cafes and summer gardens pass and repass. Dancers, courtesans who pretend to be working girls, saloonkeepers, gamblers, sporting men and women, thieves, pickpockets; all to be met within this motly throng, as they go and come on this lovely May evening.

Put there was one who mixed not in the throng,

Watching in the Market Place.

as one who is a looker on, can see and observe more in a crowd, than those who mingle with it. This person was a woman; she had stationed herself on Broadway, on the northwest corner of the Market Place, in the shadow of the large window of the big drygoods house, of F. N. & Co., where she could see distinctly the face of every man and woman, who passed by, and could not be observed by them. She was about thirty-four or five years of age, tall and slender, the willowy slender which seldom carries much flesh even in mature years. She wore a black silk dress, rich in material and make, although showing signs of wear. In the style of the bodice that fitted perfectly every curve of her slight, graceful figure, the elegant sleeve, and in the hang of the skirt, told that some artist hand must have fashioned it. About her shoulders, and gathered up around her slender throat, was a black thread lace scarf, and upon her head which was regal in its poise, she wore a piece of black lace twisted into the shape of a little bonnet. And over the bonnet was worn a long tissue veil, of some dark color. Her lustrous brown black hair, rippled on a low, wide forehead, and under the delicate brows, great violet eyes glowed like caverns, with fire flaming up from their depths. Her face was pale, and seamed by illness and suffering, yet it had lines of great beauty; and her whole bearing had a queenliness and an air of distinction, which marked her as high bred, and belonging to the upper class.

Every now and then, she would draw the long tissue veil closer about her features, and fall back into the lO

In the Market Place.

shadow of the window, as some man drew near, whose face, she thought, bore a likeness to the one she was in search of. She had stood thus from the gathering of dusk, until after ten o'clock, when the crowd had thinned considerably and the keepers of the stands and stalls, had hung their shutters and put out their lights, and there was nothing open but a few booths, and the saloons, and restaurants, that clustered on the side streets of the Market Place. As she stepped a few paces out from the window, she heaved a deep sigh, and gazed about her hesitatingly. She had just made a turn to leave, when Cyrus Alvin on his way home from the Mission Hall on Ave. F. three or four blocks away, passed the window. As he did so the full glare of the electric light fell upon him. A hectic flush mounted to the woman's cheek, and she quickly stepped back in her hiding place, with the exclamation: ‘'Dear God! what a face! A face that does one good to look upon now and then." Out of all the faces that came and went, while she stood waiting and watching, faces lined and seamed with every passion that cramp and fetter men's souls; strife, greed, avarice, deceit, hate, sensuality, and the philosophy, “Let us eat, drink and be merry for to-morrow we die," this face out of them all, rose up in its beauty of intellect purity, tenderness, and love for one's own kind.

On the evenings that Cyrus Alvin preached in the Mission he generally walked through the Market Place on his way home. He was one of the few men in the world, and every century is marked with but a

II Watching in the Market Place

few, who spring up here and there out of the millions of men, who have at heart, love for the people, and sympathy for the masses ; who understand their weaknesses, ignorance, failures and their toil and struggle for existence. Cyrus loved the Market Place, and his loving, Christian heart, went out to the crowds that came and went there daily and nightly. If he could but turn it into a Forum such as the Greeks had at Athens, he thought, one that would hold thousands of people. Why not a Christian Forum, where he could catch the ear of the motley crowds that thronged it from four in the morning, until the stroke of midnight, in search of the fleeting pleasures of the moment, and preach Christ’s beautiful and simple teachings, and turn the tide of their lives to better purposes. Cyrus Alvin passed on, the woman’s eyes followed him, as if she divined something soothing, something in him, that would act as a healing balm to still the tempest that tossed and raged in her bosom. She watched him until he turned the corner of the street and became lost to sight. The woman drew her veil more closely about her face, stepped out from her hiding place, and went her way.

Chapter II

AI.I:. H]^R PAST WITH ITS TOVE^S AND HATE), ITS SINS AND remorse.

She turned south on Broadway, and walked about a block, when she came to Ave F., where she turned up and walked until she reached Eighth St., then went south another block, which brought her to W. St., where she turned down and walked until she came to the middle of a long row of small, two story, old brick tenement houses, black with the soot and grime of years. In about the center of this row, she went into a narrow alley, which led to the rear ; here she began to ascend a stairway, old and rickety, that led up to a porch as old and rickety as the stair-way. It was almost totally dark here, but for the faint rays of a candle, which seemed to come from a window looking out on the porch above. As the woman climbed slowly up the steps, she was watched by an elderly negress who stood at the head of the stairs. When she nearly reached the top she held out her long, slender, white hand, to the black one, that was extended to help her, and the colored woman exclaimed as she did so : ‘‘Oh, honey Mistiss, Pse jes’ a gwyan to go hunt fo’ ye.” The black woman led her mistress across the porch and into the door of the room, where the candle burned in the window.

‘‘I had no idea it was so late, Lou,’’ said the woman. Taking off her veil, she untied the strings of her little bonnet, wrapped the veil about it, and threw them on a cot that stood in one corner of the room and seated herself on the cot beside them with a sigh of exhaustion.

''Da’s no use ye pestern yesef in dis way, my Miss Annette. Ye jes’ let tings go, honey, de Lod will fouch Massa Count in His own good time suah, honey. Is ye suah Mistiss dat he lef Pais an came back to his own Ian’.”

"Oh, yes, Lou, he must have reached here in November. You know his father died the July before, disinheriting him, and he came to this country to contest the will, as he had spent the large sums of money his father gave him, on condition that he would live abroad. He is in hiding somewhere, Lou. He has no money only what he would make by cards, games of chance, and his wits. Yes, he is hiding from me, Lou, as he showed plainly by his actions for months, before he left Paris, he wanted to sever all ties with me. You remember I did not see him for six or seven weeks beforp he left, nor had he for several months before that contributed one sou, to keep up our expensive mode of living.” She sighed and laid her head on the hard moss pillow of the cot, made by her old nurse Louise.

The black woman lighted a small coal oil stove that stood on a sort of improvised table, made of two or three old rough boards, — and nailed to some split sticks of sawed cord-wood for legs. She then placed

In the Market Place.

over the stove a small, tin sauce-pan full of water to boil. In a corner near where the table stood, were a few shelves of the same rough boards, covered with clean newspapers, and arranged upon them were two, or three plates, two vegetable dishes, a white china cup and saucer, and a blue delf cup and saucer of larger dimensions. In the opposite corner from where Annette Lefarge reclined, was a similar cot, but made something like the table, of rough boards. It was covered with a patch-work quilt, old and worn but scrupulously clean, so was the calico case that covered the small pillow This was Louise's bed, made by her own hands, as was all the furniture in the room. The walls of the room were bare of paper, the plastering dingy and grimy, the floor was also bare, but clean, the boards scrubbed white.

Louise had been Annette Lefarge's mother's slave, and Annette’s nurse from the moment her eyes first opened to the light of this mundane sphere. She was about fifty-five years of age, her skin was a dark copper color, her face intelligent and pleasing; the features were shapely and expressed much character. A red bandanna handkerchief turbaned her head, and her blue calico dress, and long gingham apron, looked as if they had just come from the iron, they were so spotlessly clean, and were without a wrinkle. And after years of wealth and luxury, which she shared with her Mistress, she was now her only support, and had been from the day they arrived in the City, where thirteen years before Annette had flown from home, husband and child. And now at the age of thirty-four, she was in the first stages of that dread disease consumption.

Aunt Louise took from one of the shelves a small, tin tea-pot, poured in some boiling water, rinsed it out, took from a paper package a teaspoonfull and a half of tea, put it in her little pot, and poured over it enough boiling water to steep. She then spread a few clean newspapers over the rough boards of the table, placed upon it the white china cup and saucer, a plate, a small dish of strawberries, that the dear old soul, had bought at one of the fruit stands in the Market Place, on her way home from work, where she had washed all day for a family. This faithful creature was an exception to her race. Her hardest work in all her former life was to nurse her old Mistress’ children, and to attend to her dear Miss Annette. She took from its paper wrapping a patter of nice fresh butter, also some fresh rolls bought at the bakery. She then drew up the table to the side of the cot, where her mistress reclined, although it looked decidedly shaky, still it was strong, for her own hands had nailed the boards to the cord-wood legs. Then she poured the rest of the boiling water into the tea-pot.

''Come, honey mistiss,” she said, as she poured out the tea, into the white china cup, "ye’s hadn’t fixed a ting to eat fo’ ye sef all de day. Can’t spec to las long dat way, an ye’s so poolly.”

Annette Lefarge was a lover of a good cup of tea, and had taught her maid years before how to make it, as the blacks are not tea lovers, and seldom master i6 In the Market Place.

the art of brewing the delicious beverage, their liking running to coffee. But Louise had not only attained perfection in tea making, but learned to love it as well as her mistress. When she had finished waiting on Annette, she took from the shelf her own blue delf cup and saucer, put in a little cream and sugar and poured the cup full of tea ; buttered a roll and seated herself on her cot. It was the first mouthful she had tasted since a light lunch at noon.

‘‘Have you ever thought of going to the Institute, Louise, since our arrival here,’’ asked Annette, heaving a great sigh, and taking a sip or two of tea.

“Mistiss honey, da is no use ye’s bovern about de chile now dea,” she replied in the softest tones, as she observed tears in her Mistress’ eyes. “What could ye do now, honey, fo de chile? Ye’d only fotch him to misery, an if anyting hoppens to ye, honey, he might fall into bad bans. Ise so ole now, dea, an we’s so poo-a, Ise couldn’t take da sponsibility ob rearin’ him, an’ he ought to be reared a geneman ; all his kin befo him hab been ladies an genemen. Ye’s all de chile Ise ken kyare fo now, an its moighty poo-a at dat. So, honey, dea, done trouble about de chile, tries to be jes as comfotable as ye ’s ken, an if de Lod is willin fo ye to seed him, ye’ll get stronger an seed de boy, dats de trufe, honey, suah. I knows, honey,” she continued, her cheek blanching gray, “dat Ise not widout blame mysef, but dea, ye’s would go, an no advisin’ .of mine could keep ye fom it. An so long as ye wus sot on gwyan an begged me so had to go wid ye, Ise couldn’t bear to seed ole Mistisses

Her Past with its Loves.

daughter go to foeign pa-ts alone, wid a strange man, so Ise gib up my little home, Ise kept since ole Pete, my husban’, died, an’ went wid ye. But tell me, honey, wus da no divoce, dat what white folks git in de Couts, an a ceramony afta. Ise always thought da wus.”

‘‘I led to you believe so at the time, but we had to keep our whereabouts a secret. The Count thought, and I thought, that my husband would follow us until he tired of the chase, then he would sue for a divorce, but he did not until we had been gone eight years. When I found I was going to become a mother, I urged the Count to pay a visit to this country; he had been talking of taking the journey for some time. He wanted to see his father about money matters ; when we arrived here he acknowledged to me that my husband had applied and gotten a divorce two years before. You know, Lou, I never wanted to part with my baby. I made a vow after vow to myself, before my baby boy came, that I would give up the old, gay, frivlous life, and devote myself to it the remainder of my days. You and you only know, Lou, how I pleaded with him, to let me keep it, I thought it would be a tie between us, something by which I could hold him. I had grown sick of his profligate way of living, not that I had much of the old ardent passion, I once felt for him left, it had mostly worn itself out, or rather had been crushed out, by him.

“Time and again the thought came to me after we arrived in America, that he intended leaving me. I 2 begged him while here in this country, before my baby was born, to let us be legally married. He made a great many excuses, but finally promised me if he could make some arrangement with his father, to provide him, with a settled yearly income, we would go back to Paris, and be married there, which would be the safest, as the French laws in regard to the legality of marriage are different from ours, and when we were settled in Paris, we would send you for the child. I never learned from him the result of his visit to his father, but I don’t think he succeeded in getting a settled income nor any money, but you know we left the baby here and returned to France. There he deserted me, I suppose he planned that after the little money he left us was gone and there was no more to keep up our handsome and expensive apartments, I would not sell my laces, furs and jewels, but find relief and comfort for my wounded feelings, for all the years of my youth that we spent together, under the protection of the Marquise de Noailles. He was very rich, and always had a strange infatuation for me. He was married, and you know, dear Louise, that the American woman can’t play the role of mistress to a married man, so well as her foreign sister, the French woman. We are bad enough, and I don’t know but worse. We get divorces, which relieves the husband of all further responsibility of the support and care of wife and children; if it is the wife, of course she will stick to her children. I had fallen low enough, I had sinned grievously, but I made up my mind that the woman who for nearly thirteen

Her Past With its Loves.

years passed as the Count de Gascon’s wife, the Countess de Gascon, should never be another man’s mistress.

''As you are aware I sold all my wardrobe, silks, satins, laces, furs and jewels. A good deal of the money went to keep up our house for the months we waited for the Count to return, and what brought us here to search for him. And I will find him, Lou, you will help to find him. We will search the whole City, we will hunt the whole earth over for him, and when found,” — she rose up from the cot, her lace scarf dropped from her shoulders, her tall attenuated figure had lost none of its sinuous grace, her head rose proudly up from the long slender throat, that looked like a piece of polished ivory against the black coils of her lustrous hair. All her past with its love and hate, its errors and sins, its remorse, and now its tragic ending, leaped up from her heart, and flashed out in white flame from the great, hollow eyes, which looked like deep, dark caverns. "Yes, and when found this hand,” she lifted it slowly up, "will kill him, will plunge this,” she held a long, silver mounted stilleto in it, "plunge this into his heart. Ah, my old name, my father’s name, what would he have thought of daughter who did as I did. Is it nothing for a woman, to throw away husband, home and child, good name, place, honor, and chastity, for a man? Yes Lou, this frail hand, that has never hurt a fly will drive the knife to the quick, and I will stand and see him fall dead at my feet. But — but — my baby boy. Oh, God be merciful to me.” She bent her head, and

In the Market Place.

covered her face with her hands, and dropped on the cot. '‘Ah, yes, the God above, to whom I have never given one thought in all my careless, pleasure-loving, sinful life take pity, — pity on me, pity a wretched woman like me.’’

So here on this fair May evening, in this poor little room, in the poverty stricken tenement quarter of the City, with its bare floor, sits Annette Lefarge, a pale, worn woman, still young, still beautiful, but now fallen a victim to the dread disease, consumption. She who for thirteen years, was known in the principal cities of Europe, as the beautiful American, the Countess de Gascon. The woman whose beauty, wit and grace, attracted scores of what is called the best men, of the upper world. English Lords, Earls, Dukes, French Counts and Viscounts, Marquises, rich men, men of letters, artists, and journalists, all gathered about her.

"Mon Dieu, the American is beyond compare,” said the Marquis de Noailles, one of the richest, handsomest nobles of the French Capital, a savant, a member of the Academic, but whose weakness was beautiful women. It was at a Fete, given at a bijou house on the Champs Elysees, that the Count de Gascon had rented for a number of years. Annette known then as the Countess de Gascon, was standing in the middle of a long Salon, in the centre of a group of noted men and women, of the smart, fast set. Her pale Canary satin shimmering under Irish point lace, which looked as if the swallows had stolen the cloud fringes from the sky, and woven them into meshes

Her Past With its Loves.

of intricate patterns, so rare and costly it was, so softly delicate. A scarf of the same lace, folded over her bare shoulders, and was caught across her bosom, by a broach of gleaming gems. A rope of the same pure stones, clasped her white throat ; and a dagger of brilliants bound the coils of her lustrous, black hair. A mass of pink roses, which sent out their sweet odours, nestled to one side of her corsage. A hectic flush crimsoned her pale, swarthy cheek, while her pouting, rosy lips, dropped '‘bonmots,’’ as bright and sparkling as the light which flashed in her great, violet eyes.

''Ah, how spirituelle, a charm indescribable, she ize luvely,’' cried St. Edmunds, the young son of the journalist. Editor of Le Temps.

"Those eyes, and the whole face, just what I have been looking for, I want the face for my Rachel,’’ said young, struggling Guidhartes,who afterwards became so famous for his paintings of beautiful women. '‘What a story there must be behind all her frivolity, to have given her face, such a mixture of gayety and suffering. There has been a great love there, but it has been starved, and the memory of something lost craved for.”

So we find her, she who was the cynosure of all that brilliant throng, which gathered about her that night, in her luxurious home, where they drank, played and danced, until the day broke over the City, and the sun lighted the hills of Montmorency, and gilded the waters of the Seine. Had she been hard, cold and mercenary, had she set a price upon her charms.

In the Market Place.

had she gone upon the principle of many of her sisters, and brothers too, that if I don’t eat I shall be eaten ? Had she been more covetous and avaricious, she would not now be dying in poverty. But she was like the butterfly, she loved to spread her gay wings to the sunshine, to glide from flower to flower, and sip the honey, as she went. She was thoughtless, gay, luxurious, indolent, trifling. But she had this one virtue, she was true to the man who led her to sin, and for whom she renounced so much.

So we find her on this sweet. May evening. The only faithful creature out of all those gay flatterers, was her black maid, her old nurse, who now sat at her side, with her turbaned head bent in her black wrinkled hands, glancing now and then through her tear dimmed eyes, at the pale, worn face of her mistress, her dear Miss Annette, whom she held in her arms, when she was but a few minutes old. Her long, slender, white fingers twined together tightly, knowing well that it will be but a few months or a year at the most, ere they will be parted forever. Alas, yes, what a price the woman pays for passion, the thing the world gives the misnomer of love.

CHAPTER III. TANGlvEWOOD

Prom the heart of the old City, in which the great Market Place stood, there led a street, that ran its narrow length in a circuitous way, until it reached the northern suburbs, where it widened into a roadway, that was at one time considered the most beautiful carriage drive in the state of Missouri. Along this drive were cottages, old mansions, with spacious grounds, the remains, of what several years before had been large farms, but were now laid out in City lots, of from one to two and three acres, and sold whenever the demand came for ground to build a suburban residence. To the east of the road, lay the bottom lands, stretching off to the river, and upon the west side rose the uplands. To the southwest, the fields and meadows swept away to the hills, that at sunset wrapped about them a mantle of mist, glinted with all the hues of earth and sky.