Tangled paths

PART I. ' * A i f ' s i

*

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Chapter I

“What is the use of going to church, Td like to know?” exclaimed Edyth Weston, in petulant tones, as her old nurse placed her ermine tippet around her shoulders and proceeded to button it. “ I say, what’s the use of it?” she again asked, giving herself a jerk that sent one of the glittering buttons spinning into a corner.

“ Most people goes to church to try and sarve God ; but I don’t see as it does you any good, sure ’nutf ! ” replied nurse, while her hot African blood glowed through her swarthy cheeks, and her black eyes emitted sparks, for her young charge had been more than usually exasperating from the time she had opened her eyes that morning up to the present moment.

“ Well then if I must go, why can’t I go without so much fuss and dressing up ? — it tires me out, and makes me mad in the bargain.”

“It don’t take much, no time, to raise that temper of your’n, honey. If it warn’ t 4 fixin’ up 5 ’twould be somethin’ else. Hold still while I sew this button on ag’in,” said nurse.

“ There now ! sewing on Sunday, too ! I wish you’d make haste, you old poke.”

44 Is them your manners? I’m ’feard you’ll never lam perliteness. I b’en always used to ladies, Miss Edyth ; ladies as was ladies in the grain, and they is as perlite to poor folks as they is to rich ones.”

44 Come, Edyth ; are you ready ? Barbara, did I not tell you to dress Edyth in the gray poplin trimmed with blue, that came from Paris last week ? It seems impossible to get you to attend to my orders ! ” said a querulous voice at the door. Barbara looked round, and saw her mistress standing in the doorway, ready dressed for church.

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“ No, madam ; you didn’t give no sech orders. It’s all the same to me what the chile w T ears ; one thing’s no more trouble than another to put on — ”

“ Don’t contradict me — I won’t have it. Change her dress instantly, and put in her blue ear-rings, and get out the hat that came with the dress. And — good heavens ! look at those boots ! Take them off at once, and put on her new French boots !” said Mrs. Weston, imperiously. The world had left traces on this woman’s countenance which gave her a hard, haughty expression, and her present petulance did not tend in the least to soften them.

“ Come, the moment you’re ready, Edyth; I expect Mass will be half over by the time we get there, and you know that Father Conway always stops preaching when one comes in late, until one gets seated. Be quick, Barbara.”

Then Mrs. Weston rustled down to her carriage to wait for Edyth. She was elegantly dressed in the richest materials, made up in the latest style. Her Russian sables alone were worth a small fortune ; her eyebrows were becomingly penciled ; her cheeks artistically tinted, and through the film of a black dotted veil, the ravages of time and the wear and tear of the world, were not very apparent, and she still passed for a handsome woman. She had matronized a “Bachelor’s German” the night before, from which she did not return until after midnight, fagged out and wearied beyond expression, and w'ould have stayed at home to-day on the plea of indisposition, only that she desired to be seen in her pew by the new French Minister and his wife, the Marquis and Marquise de Rozier, w T ho were both very devout Catholics, and upon whom she was extremely anxious to make a favorable impression. So she sat tapping her foot impatiently on the soft mat that covered the carriage floor, waiting for Edyth, whom she would have left at home, but that she wished Madame de Rozier, who was noted for her maternal virtues, to see Edyth at church with her, as it would then appear that she had a serious care for her daughter’s religious training.

Up-stairs, hurry and sharp words prevailed while the change of toilette indicated by Mrs. Weston was being made ; the child’s undisciplined heart was in revolt against her mother and against the pious usages of religion, which, it seemed to her, were only in-

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vented to torment children and deprive them of pleasures they most enjoyed.

“ Study ! study ! all the week ; and music ; and Miss Arnold — - how I hate her ! — preaching propriety, and making me point my nose this way, and my toes that, and my shoulders so, and my head up; and not allowed to eat what I like, because it will hurt my complexion and make me bunchy ; and obliged to sit still while Susette pulls my hair and makes it look like a mop ; and to dress up, and to take dancing lessons, and then when Sunday comes, I can’t even go to Mass without your worrying me to death, dressing me in all sorts of fidfads, instead of letting me be just comfortable like my cousin Clara.”

“I doesn’t do it, chile; it’s your mar. She’s one of the rich quality, you know, and she hev to keep up to what she’s larnt. Your cousin Clara’s mar is a lady born, that’s a fac’ ! but they’s pore, and can’t ’ford to be ’stravagant like us,” replied nurse Barbara, as she slipped the elastic string of Edyth’s hat under the cloud of loose flaxen curls that fell in glossy profusion over her neck and shoulders.

“ And I wish, too, that Natalie could teach me instead of Miss Arnold.”

“ G’long, chile, you’s all ready now,” said Barbara, placing her brown hands upon her hips and looking with the inborn admiration of her race for beautiful things, at Edyth, who was lovely indeed, in her becoming attire, for nature had done much for her, independent of such aids. Flushed and angry, she made no answer, but ran down the broad staircase, unobservant of the spice of sarcasm in nurse Barbara’s speech ; out through the hall, down the marble steps, and sprang into the carriage, beside her mother. And so the two rolled away in the luxurious carriage, to be present at the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar — in what spirit our readers may understand — while old Barbara gathered up the garments scattered over the floor, shrewdly wondering “if Miss’ Weston ever ’spected to make her darter a good Christian that ar way ? ” But the problem was too tough for her; she only knew that the present Mrs. Weston was very different from her master's first wife ; and that her daughter, who was then finishing her education at a convent school, was like

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her own dead mother, and not spoiled and ill-trained like her stepsister, Edyth. She many a time felt sorry for the child. “ They aint satisfied,” she often thought, “ to let the gal grow, but they fo’ces her jest like they does the strawberries and flowers in our hothouse. I aint got no lamin’, but I got sense ’nuff to see that ; and I think it’s a sin and a shame to spile God A’ mighty’s purty work that way. But them sort o’ white folks don’t know nothin’.”

Barbara could only take it out in thinking ; there was nothing she could do to help matters, but she occasionally relieved her mind by giving vent to obscure and sarcastic speeches of a sort like those related. We will leave her now, to tell you something of the people to whom we have already introduced you, and of some others who, being also Catholics, developed in their characters the beautiful fruits of those graces which are bestowed upon the faithful observers of their Holy Faith.

Mr. Weston was a banker of enormous wealth, whose energies, ever since his earliest manhood, had been absorbed by a greed for accumulating money. He had come from his country home to the

city of , when he was a lad of fifteen, with five dollars in his

pocket, and succeeded, after repeated efforts to obtain employment, in being engaged as errand-boy in a store, where he gained by industry, and a regular, honest attention to his duties, the good-will of his employer, and was promoted to a place of trust and responsibility. After a few years, this gentleman’s health obliged him to retire from business and go abroad, and he recommended in strong terms his .young clerk to a banking-house in which a friend of his own was senior partner, and Caleb Weston was appointed “ runner” in place of one who was just promoted. Living -frugally, permitting himself no indulgences of any sort, shrewdly attentive to the interests of his employers, punctual, alert, and honest in all his dealings, it would have been strange had he not made his way upward in the life so perfectly consonant with his inclinations ; at last, like all men of one idea, he found success and was taken into partnership, his perfect acquaintance with the business being more valuable capital than the few thousands he had scraped together and now threw into the firm as a nucleus around which, he had made up his mind, should gather a princely fortune. Caleb

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Weston belonged to no sect or creed ; religion was a thing entirely outside his world ; and if brought in contact squarely with the subject, he regarded it as an amiable sort of system, so far as he understood it ; but not being able to bring it down to a tangible calculation, or manipulate it by rules of algebra, or finger it in the shape of coupons, bonds, bank notes, gold, silver, or certificates of stock, he did not think it worth considering ; in fact, he looked upon any attention given to the subject as wasted time.

The only spot left uncrusted by greed of gold in this man’s heart during all these years of indefatigable struggle for success, and which showed that it was human in its instincts, was his constancy to an old schoolmate in his native village, a penniless girl, with whom he used to share his apples and chestnuts, and pull home on his rough sled when the ground was covered with snow. Like himself, Cecilia Reid was poor, but she was a Catholic ; he, a dependent on relations whose circumstances were far from being prosperous, was nothing ; nobody cared, and none of them had time, even had they known how, to give him the simplest rudiments of a Christian education, and so he had drifted out into the great world and fallen into the hands of Mammon. She, Cecilia Reid, was sorry to part with her old school-comrade, who had always been kind to her, and whom nobody else liked ; and as the months and years passed by without his coming back, or writing to any one, she concluded that he had forgotten them all ; and, having her own work in life to do, she ceased even to wonder what had become of him. She belonged to one of those old South of Maryland families who came over with Lord Baltimore, and received grants of land from him for their services in the colony — who were rich, and kept great state for two or three generations, until their possessions began to diminish, and grow less from decade to decade ; until the last of them, Cecilia’s father and his children, were penniless, bereft of all except their old honorable name, and that which was inestimable above everything, their faith — to which from generation to generation the race had clung through evil as well as good report, and in whose blessed sign they had passed from earth to heaven. And at length these passed away also, leaving only this fragile girl, without means, or friends, who could assist her, to battle as bravely as she might with adversity

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and trial. With a breaking heart, she confided herself with simple faith to the protection of the Blessed Virgin, and took up her cross without murmur, as her dear Lord had done before her, relying on the promises of Him who declared that He would be the Father* of the orphan.

Caleb Weston was thirty years old before he took breath and time from his money-getting to look around himself and realize the fact that he was solitary and needed domestic companionship in a home of his own after the toils of business. The thought haunted him like a pleasant dream for some time, and he began to wonder where Cecilia Reid might be, and if she remembered him. He knew that she had been brought up in severely economical habits, and would, far from wasting his substance, if he married her, be a help to him, by managing his domestic concerns, in which there were leaks he could neither understand nor stop, while at the same time he would have the only companionship he cared for. Not that he meant to be parsimonious with his wife : for it would reflect upon him, and throw a sort of discredit on his prosperity for her not to appear and live as other ladies did, but it would have to be in moderation. He took his sister — whose husband had settled in the same city — into his counsels so far as to tell her that he had made up his mind to marry, and ask her advice as to what preparations he had best make. The result was that he rented a more commodious and modern house than the den he had lived in so long, which Was in an obscure street ; and in a nice quarter of the city, which, assisted by his sister’s good taste, he furnished handsomely for the bride whom he hoped soon to bring into it. Then, when everything was ready, it suddenly occurred to him that Cecilia Reid may have forgotten him, or married some one else, or perhaps be dead. His sister — Mrs. Waite — never dreamed but that all the preliminaries of his intended marriage had been arranged in the usual way ; and if the methodical man of business had told her that he did not even know whether the lady were living, dead, or married, she would have felt some natural apprehensions of his sanity. Caleb Weston’s avarice and his business now sunk to a secondary place in his thoughts ; he mentioned his dilemma to no one, but telling his sister that he had to go out of town for a day or two, he posted without delay to the little village

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II nestling amongst the hills of North Maryland to see whether it were weal or woe that he should find. To his deep joy he learned that Cecilia Reid was living and well, and that she was engaged in teaching in the family of ex-Governor Osborne, whose country-seat, “ Ravenwold,” was five miles off. They told him, too, that she had grown to a beautiful womanhood, and was beloved by every one, rich and poor, for her virtues. He learned these particulars more in detail afterward from the good old Catholic pastor, who had a small congregation in the village, and who had known Cecilia and her parents all their lives, and who hoped in his heart that the inquiries made by this grave, gentlemanly man, presaged some good for the brave, pious, gentle girl.

Caleb Weston thanked Father Ryan for his information, without making himself known to him ; then he hired a light wagon and drove without delay to “ Ravenwold,” where he was welcomed by his old favorite — after she made out who he was — as a brother. He questioned her : and she told him, between smiles and tears, of her past, then reminded him of this and that incident of their school days, until the man found his cold, calculating self thawing in the sunshine of a nature more exalted and pure than his own, and he was almost tempted to imagine that his life heretofore had been as unreal as it had been joyless. Before they parted he told her what had brought him there. After her first surprise, Cecilia Reid did not pain him by a brusque refusal, but gently and gravely reminded him that although they had known each other as children, the long time between then and now had, in reality, made them strangers to each other.

“ I am not so good as you are,” he answered, hurt at her hesitation ; “ but I have nothing to be ashamed of in my career. I have won an independent position, and am able to take care of my wife when I marry.”

“ But marriage is a serious business, and I was not thinking of your worldly affairs, Caleb — there are other things to be considered when two people risk their earthly happiness, and perhaps their very hereafter, by entering a state which you know we Catholics consider indissoluble.”

“ I should never interfere with the religious faith of my wife or

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family. I have no belief myself — perhaps I am passively an infidel — not from conviction, but because I never give such matters as creed and dogma the least consideration. I have no time for such things, and yet — strangely as it may sound — I would not marry an irreligious, worldly-minded woman if she had the world in her sling. I want a home , and I want a wife who can make my home the one sacred, happy, restful refuge that I have on earth. That is the reason I have left my affairs down yonder, and come up here among the hills to find you, and place my happiness, hopes, and future in your hands.”

“ I must think it over ; I must take it to my Blessed Mother for guidance, Caleb ; you know that she has been the star of my life’s troubled sea,” said the young girl, lowering her eyes to conceal the tears that filled them ; “ I never take any step without going to her.”

“ I am glad that you take comfort in such a belief, but I hope you may not be induced by any phantasm of your imagination to cast me off ! And I must tell you that my business affairs exact almost my entire attention ; even now, but for the great hope I have, I could not lose a day.”

“And are you so swallowed up by worldly interests, as all that?” she asked, with a look of sad wonder in her eyes. “ Now I see indeed that you need help.”

“Yes, I need help; and I want no help but yours. I will come again to-morrow ; I must hurry back,” he said, looking at his watch ; “ I have to dispatch some letters by the evening mail, to — to the firm which employs me.” Then he wrung her hand, and drove off, leaving Cecilia astonished and bewildered at the sudden change that had come into her life, filling her with uncertainty, and almost dread ; she went out upon the lawn, and seeking her favorite seat, shaded and sheltered from observation by a beautiful growth of old trees and shrubbery, she threw herself upon the rustic bench, to think it all over, and go over her rosary, before she returned to the bustle of the school-room.

Caleb Weston’s wooing prospered, and in three months from .that day he and Cecilia Reid were quietly married by Father Ryan in the sacristy of the secluded village church, with only three or four friends

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to witness the ceremony. He had told her nothing of his prosperity, or of his rapidly increasing riches ; he had simply assured her that his business would yield them a comfortable support, for he had a mind to be taken for himself alone, and not even afford the one he had chosen for his wife the temptation of accepting him for his money. In this case he need have had no such apprehensions, for there never lived a more unworldly being, or one more utterly devoid of self-interests, than Cecilia Reid; she was perfectly content with his statements, and expected nothing more than moderate comfort, and a life of domestic effort, interpersed with the trials and lights and shadows which usually fall to the lot of women whose husbands are engaged in the struggles and vicissitudes of business life with small or no capital. Imagine, then, her surprise, and his quiet delight, when he led her into the beautiful home he had prepared for her reception, and told her that it was all hers, and that she was its sole mistress.

This wooing and marrying was the one romance of Weston’s life, and he was supremely happy in its fulfillment, the realization of his dream so far surpassing its promise. The virtues, the intelligence, and loveliness of his wife’s character appealed to all the dormant good that lay under the hard substance of the man’s character ; he saw how religion refined and consecrated her natural traits, and how beautiful, without ostentation, it made her daily life. A devout Catholic, she was consequently a good wife, whose example had already, in due time, been the means of the conversion of her husband’s sister, Mrs. Waite ; and was, all unconscious to himself, leading him gradually to better aims and higher aspirations than those of his sordid past.

But a sudden and dark eclipse threw its shadow upon all this happiness : a morning came whose sun rose upon the young wife, living, loving, hoping, whose setting beams shone like a halo upon her dead face as placid and white as the carven image of a saint; and there were only the stifled sounds of a man’s grief and the wail of a new-born child, and the soft fall of muffled footsteps to break the silence of the home which was so recently the abode of peace and happiness. That very morning Cecilia Weston had partaken of the Adorable Sacrament, of the “ Bread which cometh down from

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heaven/’ which, “whosoever eateth thereof, shall the Father receive;” little dreaming that it was her Viaticum ; and her last act before leaving the church had been to kneel before the Altar of the Mother of Jesus to offer herself with sweet humility to her as her handmaid, and commend to her tender care her husband, herself, and her unborn babe, all unknowing that before the stars arose in the purple heavens she would be received into everlasting habitations, and behold the glory of Those whom she had adored and loved upon earth. God had given her brief earthly happiness after the patiently and bravely-borne trials of her young life ; now He had crowned her with eternal rejoicings ; but her home and the human hearts that most loved her were left desolate. Caleb Weston’s heart grew full of bitter revolt the more he thought over the inscrutable providence which had taken from him the light and solace of his life, just when it was beginning to dawn upon his mind what was the true end and aim of his creation ; leaving him with a motherless child, which he did not know in the least what was to become of, and which he did not even care to see ; and throwing him back, as it were, on his old, hard life, a desolate man.

This first marriage was the idyl of Caleb Weston’s life, and as time wore on, he held its memory apart and separated from every other thing, crystallized in the barren strata of his existence, embalmed and sacred — but which had no softening or revivifying effect on his benumbed nature. y He took his little girl, when she was three years old, away from his sister’s care, and placed her with her mother’s aunt, who was Superior of a Convent of the Holy Cross, to be reared and educated, thinking that it was what his dead wife would have desired, had time been given her to tell her last wishes. The gentle religious, after considering the responsibilities of so young a charge, and the circumstances under which the application was made, consented to receive the child, whose lovely face and winning little ways had already touched her heart with a yearning, tender sympathy.

“ Not to make a nun of her,” he said gravely ; “ I wish none of that. I would have let her remain with my sister, but there’s only one girl, and too many boys there ; so I have acted on what I believe would have been her mother’s wish.”

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“ Your confidence shall be respected, Mr. Weston. ‘ We can not give your child a vocation for a religious life : that is a celestial gift ; but, on the other hand, we can not make her a worldling.”

“ I do not wish that ; make her like her mother and I shall be satisfied,” was the grave answer ; and there was a quiver in the man’s hard chin, a. tremulous movement of his eyelids, a flush, and a knotting of the veins of his forehead : it was the momentary assertion of nature over his iron self-control, but he gulped back the emotion, shook hands stiffly with the good nun, and went his ways, leaving the child’s nurse, Barbara, at the Convent with her until she became accustomed to the strange faces in her new home.

After this, Weston the banker — as he w r as known — now senior partner of “ our house,” the others having realized princely fortunes and retired, made some audacious speculations, which caused business men to hold their breath with astonishment, and predict that he would be ruined ; but they had scarcely settled themselves to that conclusion when the wheel turned, and brought at least another million into his coffers. What drinking and gaming are to some men, money-making became to him — a feverish, absorbing excitement ; he triumphed with intense satisfaction in his gains ; and attained his end always — by whatever means, fair or foul, he grew not to care which, so he won. It was whispered that much dirty work was done for “ our house,” for the execution of which a special agent, who did not mind soiling his fingers, was retained and salaried. And at last the time came when “ our house” ranked respectably with those of the Rothchilds, the Barings, and others ; it was quoted in the great marts of the world, and planted its branches in foreign lands, while at home the confidence it inspired was unlimited. But “ our house,” great as it was, did some very little things ; as, for instance, when a widow, forced to the alternative by delayed remittances, asked a small loan, and was told in a tone that put an end to all pleading, that “our house” never negotiated loans except on regularly endorsed paper ; or if a man applied for temporary help until he could realize certain assets, to save him from bankruptcy, “our house” was courteously sorry, but such transactions were entirely outside its regular and legitimate business ; and once a young and honorable man, whose integrity i6

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none had ever doubted, closely hampered by some of those commercial vicissitudes which the most experienced and clear-sighted can not foresee in time to avert the consequences, was driven by the merciless dealings of “ our house ” to desperation and self-destruction. “Our house” would not have missed the loan which would have saved him, body and soul, even had it never been repaid, but such were “ our ” ways. Is it any wonder that the prophets announced woe to the rich ; or that the God-Man pleaded in merciful warnings to them to “ make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness ” by acting as the stewards of His Father in distributing their superfluous goods to the destitute and needy ?

“Our house” prospered, until Caleb Weston scarcely knew the extent of his riches. One day it occurred to him that it would be a very proper thing for him to set up an establishment, and do as other rich men did ; his ambition was aroused to let the world see and admire the splendor of that for which he had toiled so many years ; in short, he felt that it would be a fine thing to set up the golden calf he had made, that men might fall down and worship it. He knew the world so far. He forthwith gave orders to architects and builders for the erection of a palace, in which no expense was to be spared to make it the most perfect of its kind ; and as it drew near to completion an agent was sent to Paris for furniture. Half ashamed of his prodigality, he excused it to his business acquaintances who were familiar enough with him to refer to his private affairs, by saying that his daughter, who was nearly grown, would be coming from school in a year or so, and he wanted to have a home ready for her in which nothing should be wanting that could make her happy.