CHAPTER IV.
Part Seventh.
THE DAY OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS. DEC. 25, 1844.
| CHAPTER I. | Martin Fulmer appears. |
| CHAPTER II. | "The Seven" are summoned. |
| CHAPTER III. | "Say, between us Three!" |
| CHAPTER IV. | The Legate of His Holiness. |
| CHAPTER V. | The Son, at Last! |
| CHAPTER VI. | A Long Account Settled. |
| CHAPTER VII. | The Banquet Room once more. |
| On the Ocean—By the River Shore—In the Vatican—On the Prairie. |
PRELIMINARY SKETCH.
Christmas Eve, 1823, was a memorable night in the history of a certain wealthy family in New York. The night was dark and stormy, but the tempest which swept over the bay, and whitened the city's roofs with snow, was but a faint symbol of the tempest of human passion—jealousy, covetousness, despair—then at work, in the breasts of a group of individuals, connected with the old and distinguished family of Van Huyden.
On that night, Gulian Van Huyden, the representative of the family, and owner of its immense wealth—a young man in the prime of early manhood, who had been happily married a year before—gave a great banquet to his male friends, in his city mansion. By his side was seated his younger brother, Charles Van Huyden, whom the will of their father had confined to a limited income, while Gulian, as the elder son, had become the possessor of nearly all of the immense wealth of the family.
The banquet was prolonged from about nine o'clock until near dawn, and during its progress, Gulian and his brother had been alternately absent, for the space of an hour, or a half hour at a time.
The city mansion of Gulian, situated not far from Trinity Church, flung the blaze of its festival lights out upon the stormy night. That light was not sufficient to light up the details of two widely different edifices, which, located within a hundred yards of Gulian's mansion, had much to do with his fortunes, and the fortunes of his family.
The nearest of these edifices, an antique, high-roofed house, which stood in a desolate garden, was (unknown to Gulian) the home of his brother, and of that brother's mistress—a woman whom Charles did not wish to marry, until by some chance or other, he became the possessor of the Van Huyden estate.
The other edifice, a one-storied hovel, was the home of a mechanic and his young wife. His name was John Hoffman, his trade that of a stone mason, and at the period of this narrative, he was miserably poor.
Now, during the night of Christmas eve (and while the banquet was in progress in Gulian's city mansion), an unknown person, thickly cloaked, entered the hovel of the mechanic, bearing a new-born child in his arms. An interview followed between the unknown, John Hoffman, and his wife. The mechanic and his wife consented to adopt the child in place of one which they had recently lost. The stranger with the child, gave them a piece of parchment, which bore on one side, the initials, "G. G. V. H. C." and on the other the name of "Dr. Martin Fulmer," an eccentric physician, well known in New York. This parchment deposited in a letter addressed to Dr. Fulmer, and sent to the post office once a quarter, would be returned to the mechanic, accompanied by the sum of a hundred dollars. John was especially enjoined to keep this interview and its results a secret from the Doctor. Having deposited the child and parchment with the worthy couple, the stranger departed, and was never again seen by the mechanic or his wife.
Within an hour of this singular interview the mistress of Charles Van Huyden, returned to her home (from which she had been absent for a brief period)—flakes of snow upon her dress and upon her disordered hair—and placed upon her bed, the burden which she carried, a new-born infant, enveloped in a shawl. As the fallen, but by no means altogether depraved woman, surveyed this infant, she also beheld her own child, sleeping in a cradle not far from the bed—a daughter some three months old, and named after its mother Frank, that is, Francis Van Huyden.
Christmas Eve passed away, and Christmas morning was near. Dr. Martin Fulmer was suddenly summoned to Gulian's mansion. And Gulian, fresh from the scenes of the banquet room, met the Doctor in an obscure garret of his mansion. He first bound the Doctor by an oath, to yield implicit obedience to all his wishes, an oath which appealed to all that was superstitious, as well as to all that was truly religious in the Doctor's nature, and then the interview followed, terrible and momentous in its details and its results. These results stretch over a period of twenty-one years—from December 25, 1823, to December 25, 1844. This interview over, Gulian left the Doctor (who, stupefied and awe-stricken by the words which he had just heard, sank kneeling on the floor of the room in which the interview had taken place), and silently departed from his mansion. He bent his steps to the Battery. And then—young, handsome, the possessor of enormous wealth—he left this life with the same composure, that he had just departed from his mansion. In plain words, he plunged into the river, and met the death of the suicide in its ice-burdened waves, while his brother Charles (whom we forgot to state, had accompanied him from the threshold of his home), stood affrighted and appalled on the shore.
Meanwhile, Dr. Martin Fulmer (bound by his oath), descended from the garret into a bedchamber of the Van Huyden mansion. Upon the bed was stretched a beautiful but dying woman. It was Alice Van Huyden, the young wife of Gulian. All night long (while the banquet progressed in another apartment) she had wrestled in the agonies of maternity, unwatched and alone. She had given birth to a child, but when the Dr. stood by the bed, the child had been removed by unknown hands.
Convinced of his wife's infidelity—believing that his own brother Charles was the author of his dishonor—Gulian had left his mansion, his wealth, life and all its hopes, to meet the death of the suicide in the waves of Manhattan Bay.
And
