The Siren
The morning was one in May, the first of the month. All nature was smiling and putting forth, like the gay daughters of earth, her ever-beauteous charms. I had just returned from a long ramble in the country, and reluctantly seated myself at the window to distribute the thoughts, the opinions, the love, the hatred, the wisdom, and the follies of mankind through the medium of letters.
Passing over several commonplace, every-day applicants, I was at last struck with the interesting appearance of a young lady who could not have attained the age of eighteen. There was, however, a certain expression of the countenance, a lurking devil—if I may use the expression—in her eye, denoting alike ungovernable passions and a reckless disregard of the consequences attending their gratification. The study of human nature for years, and a close observation of all its wire-workings and mappings of the face, which my position had a tendency to improve, have made me conversant with many of those signs which the bad passions of the human heart cannot keep in its deep recess, but send forth as warnings to the young and unwary to shun them as they would a pestilence. She gave her name as Caroline Somerville. There were fourteen letters to her address, the postage of which amounted to nearly three dollars. Her correspondence seemed to embrace the four quarters of the globe: for amongst them were two ship letters,—one from Bordeaux, the other from a small town in Scotland. I immediately set her down as one of our best female customers.
I think it was on the third day from her first application at the office that I noticed in her handwriting a note addressed to a merchant of this city,—a man of family and reputed a model of his sex, and a pattern for husbands. This excited an unusual excitement within me.
What could she have to do with Middleton? There was nothing in common between them. His situation in life, his moral character and standing in society were all opposed to the bare supposition of such a thing.
In the mean time, by the usual method, I deciphered the following words: “Pardon the freedom”—“No. 26 Gaskill Street”—“alone, seven o’clock”—“drop a note”: these were all I could make out; but they were sufficient. The character and plots of the siren were no longer a subject of doubt. I knew her as well from those unconnected sentences as if her whole history had been written out before me. She was, in the literal sense of the word, A FEMALE SEDUCER.
The next question that presented itself to my mind was, would Middleton pay any attention to her? That he would not admitted scarcely a shadow of doubt: he might probably reply to her note, but only to refuse and remonstrate with her upon the folly and imprudence, if not guilt, of her conduct.
I handed him the letter myself: he remarked immediately that it was not one of business. The seal was broken and the letter was read with an eagerness that surprised me. He placed it carefully in his pocket-book and departed. Towards evening Caroline received through me an answer from Mr. Middleton, in which I discovered he promised to meet her. From that period there came a change over his dream of life: I could not but mark the wasted form and haggard looks which others would attribute to different causes. I possessed the key to unlock the truth, but that formed no part of my vocation.
Weeks, nay, months, elapsed, and I was only reminded of this circumstance by the daily appearance of Middleton. The few short months were as years upon the calendar of his face, while the curse of memory was dragging him with an iron grasp to an early tomb. One day he told me, in a manner evidently intended to convey the request more as a matter of business than otherwise, to deliver his letters to no person but himself: “remember,” he repeated, “to no one, if you please, sir.” I promised to follow his instructions strictly. He had his reasons, and I knew it.
As I had anticipated, his wife, a lovely woman, in the fulness of life’s bloom, rich in accomplishments, the observed of all observers, called at the office; I could detect beneath the bland smile the canker-worm of domestic sorrow; the seeds of misery were sown, the harvest was ripening.
“Are there any letters here for Mr. Middleton?”
If I detest any thing in the world, it is the telling of a white lie; it soon leads to a black one. I replied that there were, but orders had been given to deliver them to no person but himself.
“Orders, sir?—did he leave such orders?”
“He did, madam.”
She struggled with passion; it was, however, in vain. The words, “perjured villain,” escaped her, and she left the office.
I could now imagine their domestic scenes,—conscious guilt on the one side, injured and insulted innocence on the other. But even this was doomed to have an end.
A report ran through the city that a murder had been committed at No. 26 Gaskill Street. Good heavens! The dwelling of Caroline! I hurried to the scene of blood, and there lay the dead body of Middleton, and beside him, in the custody of two officers, his murderer,—a youthful paramour of this modern Jezebel.
He forfeited his life upon the gallows, and Caroline Somerville died of mania a potu in the alms-house.
What became of the wife of the unfortunate Middleton? the reader may inquire. Do you see that little red frame-house which stands alone; that one with the neat little garden connected with it? There resides Mrs. Middleton, the once happy wife, together with her four small children: to maintain them she takes in washing. Yes, reader, such, alas! is her destiny.
The tide of public opinion rolls from crime, even while it carries upon its bosom many a bark freighted with the unhallowed cargo, and involves many an innocent victim in its reckless and overwhelming course. She is now alone in the world, with none to sympathize, none to alleviate her anguish. Her little ones are the peopled world in which she moves; beyond that all is chaos.