The curse of gold

by Ann S. Stephens

Jane stepped into the passage, and Madame De Marke closed the door after her. In the upper portion of the door was a narrow sash window, covered inside with a faded, red valance, through which the light came with a dull, lurid glow. It will be remembered that Madame De Marke had kindled the end of a tallow candle after the entrance of her visitor, and thus the meagre room was in some sort illuminated.

Jane naturally kept her eyes on this curtain, for all without was profoundly dark. All at once she discovered a corner of the faded maroon folded back, leaving a small, triangular corner of the glass uncovered. To this corner the nurse bent her eye, and saw Madame De Marke half-way under the bed, where she looked more like a bundle of old clothes crowded away from sight, than a human being.

By her side, upon the soiled floor, stood an ink-bottle with its neck choked up by the swaling stump of her candle. For a moment, the body of Madame De Marke almost disappeared under the bed, then she crept slowly backward, upon her hands and knees, dragging what had once been a small soap-box, after her.

When once free from the bed, Madame De Marke arose softly to her feet, crept toward the door, and tried the lock to be certain that it was secure. Then she gave the valance a pull, which, fortunately for Jane, rather increased the scope of vision, which, for the moment, she was admonished not to enjoy.

After satisfying herself that all was right, Madame De Marke seated herself on the floor, and drawing the ink-bottle close to her side, unlocked one of the iron bands that had been fastened around the box, and cautiously lifted the lid, raising the light in her left hand as she proceeded. Again she looked over her shoulder, holding her breath and half closing the lid. But perfect silence gave her confidence, and with a slow movement, as if each motion were a pang, she began to count out some gold pieces, which she laid in her lap with great caution, lest the gold should clink, and thus reach the ears which she knew must be listening outside the door.

All at once she stopped, held a half-eagle between her fingers, where it began to quiver and gleam from the unsteady motion of her hand, while a look of indescribable craft stole over her face. With both her eager hands, she huddled the gold back into its repository, and in its place drew forth a tattered morocco jewel-case that once had been purple, but had now a most shabby appearance, till she unclosed the lid and revealed a treasure that made Jane Kelly’s heart leap in her bosom.

The concentrated light of the candle fell within the casket, and she knew by the rainbow gleams and sparkles flashing out, that jewels of price were almost within her grasp.

Now Jane had a great passion for trinkets of all kinds, and it is doubtful if the whole of the bribe for which she waited, would not have taken the form of some paltry ornament within twenty-four hours, had it been paid down in gold. As it was, she pressed her eye close to the glass, and peered gloatingly down upon the burning stones, conscious of their brightness, and with a dazed sense of their value.

Directly Madame De Marke closed the casket, and thrust it into the depths of a soiled pocket, that hung between her ragged calico dress and a repulsive under-shirt made from the fragments of an old patch-work bed-quilt. Then she clasped the iron bars over her box, and going down upon her hands and knees again, thrust it away out of sight, reappearing feet foremost, while her face, as it looked out from under her arm, had the aspect of a laughing hyena, so visible were the workings of some new-born diabolical craft upon it.

“Now what is she about? what is it makes her smile so?” thought Jane Kelly, recoiling from the window-pane with a shudder, for as the woman arose her sharp eyes were turned that way. “Is she a witch? Does she know that I am peeping? Is that gold? Is the case——”