We have said little as yet directly of Mr. Howard, though a glimmering of his character must have been perceptible in the foregoing pages. Mean, crafty, purse-proud, haughty, and inflexible to obstinacy, he had nothing in common with his daughter, except the tie of relationship. Ellen was like her mother in every thing, but that mother had been long since dead,—and could the secrets of her grave have been unfolded, perhaps it might have been seen that she died of a broken heart. Yes! her husband was her destroyer. But he did nothing which made him amenable to the law. No. He was always outwardly respectful to his wife. It was only at home that his brutality broke forth; and Mrs. Howard was too meek and forgiving to publish her own sufferings. And thus like too many gentle beings in our midst she drooped, and sickened, and died; and when they laid her in her gorgeous coffin, and bore her to her tomb, amid all the splendor of wealth, how little did they think that she had been murdered—aye! murdered by her husband’s brutality. God help the thousands who thus die of a broken heart!
With such a father had Ellen now to do. He had forbidden her all communication with her lover as soon as he suspected that they met, threatening to disown her at once if she disobeyed, and Ellen was returning from a parting interview with Stanhope, in which she had told him of her father’s commands, and rejecting every proposal to elope, had signified, with a burst of tears, her determination to obey her parent, when on reaching the door-step she met Mr. Howard. He was in a towering passion, though he affected at first to conceal it.
“Very well, Miss, very well. You’ve seen fit to disobey my orders,” he commenced, “have you? I’ve watched you, you hussy, myself,” he continued, following his daughter into the hall, and closing the door, “what have you to say?”
Ellen made a vain attempt to speak, but her emotions overpowered her, and looking up imploringly into his face, she burst into tears.
“By G—, Miss, I’m not to be answered this way,” said Mr. Howard, not longer affecting to conceal his rage, and brutally seizing his daughter’s arm he shook it violently, “why don’t you speak? None of your whining: Answer me!” and again he shook her.
Never before had her parent used her thus. This personal indignity, added to his brutal language, cut her to the heart, and brought on a fresh flood of tears, which only increased her father’s rage. By this time, too, the servants had gathered in the hall, and were witnesses of the whole of this deplorable scene.
“D—n it,” he said, his face flushing with passion, as he again shook her violently, “I’ll bring an answer out of you—I will. Ain’t you going to speak? I told you I’d disown you for this,—and,” here he muttered an oath I dare not repeat, “I will. You and your beggarly, upstart paramour”—oh! had that father a heart?—“may go to the alms-house together. Out of my door this instant. You are no daughter of mine. Out, I say. Open the door, John.”
The man hesitated an instant. It only increased the rage of Mr. Howard.
“Open the door, I say. By G— am I to be disobeyed by all of you? I’ll remember you for this, you villain—you—”
“I’m sure I don’t care,” said the man, almost crying; for he had lived in the family since Ellen was a babe, and loved her as his own, “for if you are going to turn my poor dear mistress out of doors the sooner I follow the better. I’d not live with such a brute,” continued he, boldly, “for millions.”