both better people than I could be, perhaps; they had tried to steer me away from trouble, and had been deeply united by that very thing that had pushed me away from them. Hattie had risked her own reputation with her visits to my prison cell. Now that I was free, I wrote a brief letter thanking her with all my heart and wishing her happiness. I at least owed them tranquillity and peace.
For myself, I had none. My great-aunt had come to visit after I was restored to Glen Eliza, where she questioned me repeatedly about the "delusions" and "fanatical" ideas that had, in my long despair over my parents' death, ultimately led to my imprisonment.
"I did what I thought was right," I said, remembering Edwin Hawkins's words to me when I was hiding in the packinghouse.
She stood with her arms folded, her long black dress a great contrast to her snow-white hair. "Quentin, dear boy. You were arrested for murder! A jailbird! You are fortunate if anyone in Baltimore will keep your society. A woman like Hattie Blum needs a man as worthy as Peter Stuart. This house has become the very castle of indolence."
I looked at my great-aunt. She had been thrown into more of a passion over this than I had realized. "I'd have wanted nothing more than to marry Hattie Blum," I said, which was even more outrageous to her, since I was now talking about a woman shortly to be married. "Anything you can say meant to punish me further is far too little. I am happy for Peter. He is a good man."
"What would your father say! God forbid we should visit upon the dead the errors of the living. You, dear boy, are a great deal your mother's blood," she added with a dull mutter.
Before leaving that day, she flashed a glare at me intended, I later realized, as a threat. She examined Glen Eliza as though at any moment it could crumble from the moral dilapidation I had perpetrated.
Soon after, I was informed that my great-aunt had brought suit to claim possession of most of what I had inherited from my father's will, including Glen Eliza, on the basis of the mental incompetence and imbalance exhibited in my conduct since the irrational resignation of my position in Peter's practice...and my strong neglect of the Clark family investments and business interests, which had resulted in severely diminished value over the last two years...culminating in my wild, raving interruption at the fatal assembly of the Baron Dupin...my outrageous escape from prison, my rumored attempt to dig up a grave and encroach on a home on Amity Street...and all of this was proved by my complete lack of comprehension of the whole chronicle of actions.
I learned further that she had been helped in all this by Auntie Blum. It seemed that Auntie Blum had intercepted my letter of gratitude to Hattie. Inflamed to learn through my letter of Hattie's visits to my prison cell, Auntie Blum had immediately called upon Great-Auntie Clark.
Great-Auntie wrote me a letter, explaining that she was fighting for the honor of my father's name and because she loved me.
I began to ready my defense. I worked feverishly, hardly leaving the library, calling to mind the former times when Duponte would sit at the table sometimes for days without interruption.
I prepared as well as I could to defend my actions. The process was strenuous. Not only to produce responses to each accusation that my great-aunt would allege as evidence that I had squandered and misused my good fortune and name in society; but also to frame it in the language of the law that I had thought I had abandoned.
Auntie Blum had reportedly advised that the case against me emphasize the disregard of my family's wealth. She calculated that polite Baltimore would not brook the injustice of any such pecuniary offense. This was Baltimore 's lynch law.
Meanwhile, I contemplated the many witnesses and friends I might call to my defense, but sadly concluded that many-like Peter, of course-could no longer speak in my favor. The newspapers, having only recently finished with the sensational news of my arrest, escape, and exoneration, now looked happily upon this lawsuit as containing an interesting sequel to my affairs, and always wrote about it with a tone of suspicion that it might prove me guilty yet of some other, larger misdoing.
At times, I felt convinced that I should peacefully leave this shattered house, Glen Eliza, which