Chapter
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beauty; if manners lend the aid of their almost omnipotent
charm, and a brilliant and piquant conversation
nourishes a distaste to common society.
Roscoe's mother had watched the progress of his
acquaintance with Mrs. Layton, with great solicitude.
She never attempted to govern his conduct
by maternal authority, but wisely contented herself
with the sure and silent influence of her affections,
and sentiments. She believed that no virtue could
have much vigor or merit, that was not free and independent
in its operation; and though her solicitude
never slept, she suffered her son (we use the
expression without irreverence) `to work out his
own salvation.'
She never exacted sacrifices to her opinion, and
he was never reserved in his confidence; so that, to
the tie of nature, was added the charm of voluntary
friendship.
Mrs. Roscoe perceived that Gerald's romantic encounter
with the stranger of Trenton-falls had left
a deep impression on his imagination. We cannot
say on his heart, though his mother thought, that it
was like ground broken up, and richly seeded, and
only awaiting a farther, genial, external influence.
She sympathized with all the mystery and excitement
of the adventure, for she was a true woman;
and so far it was a matter of feeling; but in her
willing recurrence to the theme of that adventure,
she had some reference to the art of the physician,
who exterminates one disease, by infusing another.
Gerald was at the age of sentiment, and she believed
that weeds would best be extirpated by the growth
of a preference, congenial to the pure and ardent
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mind of her son. This might prove an air-built castle
at last, but it was raised by hope and love, on a
base of truth.
It was not long after Pedrillo's return to town,
that a singular coincidence, happened in the Layton
family.
The husband and wife were both at home on the
same evening, and in the parlor tête-à-tête. Layton
was stretched on the sofa, and his wife at her piano,
singing a popular Italian song. “You should never
attempt Italian music, Mrs. L.,” said the husband.
She sang on. “It requires some assurance to sing
that air, after hearing the Signorina Garcia.” Still
her voice was unfaltering. “My dear Mrs. L., you
deserve a place in Matthews' nightingale club,”—
“Good Lord! Mrs. L., do stop—I shall have neither
ears nor nerves left.” Mrs. Layton was still
deaf. If `a soft answer turneth away wrath,' there
is nothing kindles it like no answer at all. Layton
felt himself insulted by his wife's impassiveness.
He thrust the poker into the grate, threw over the
shovel, and succeeded in forcing his wife from the
piano with his terrible discords. She retreated,
however, without the slightest discomposure, and
when her husband had resumed his position, on the
sofa, and she had seated herself opposite to him, she
asked him, with as much nonchalance as she would
have referred to any historical truth, “Do you remember,
Layton—I think it was the very day after
we were engaged—do you remember your shedding
tears, at my singing a little Scotch air; do you remember?”
He made no reply. “Orpheus' miracle
was nothing to mine, he only made the stones
move.”
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“But your age of miracles is past, Mrs. L.
Mrs. Layton could bear any thing with more philosophy
than an allusion to her age, but even that, from
her husband, could not ruffle her temper, or rather
disturb her command of it. “Do you remember,”
she continued, “my poor father saying, `this is
nothing, Grace, but try ten years hence if you can
draw tears from your husband's eyes.”'
“God knows,” muttered Layton, “you have
done that often enough, but not by music.”
“And yet there are those that tell me, even now
when I sing,
`That Ixion seems no more his pain to feel,
But leans attentive on the standing wheel.”'
“Yes—but your Ixion is not in the infernus of
matrimony. It was Gerald Roscoe, I fancy, who
made this famous speech to you?” The lady did
not reply. Layton whistled, but it was any thing
but the Lillabullero from the gentle soul of my
uncle Toby. Both parties were silent for the space
of half an hour.
“A devilish agreeable time we are having,” said
Layton.
“I will give you something to make it more—or
less agreeable,” replied his wife. She rang the
bell—ordered the servant to bring down her writing-desk—
took from it a roll of papers and threw
them to her husband. He opened them, looked at
one after another, and between each uttered certain
exclamations that express surprise and anger in the
most laconic form—threw them all aside, and strode
up and down the room.
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“There are besides,” said Mrs. Layton, “some
unwritten accounts, which, while your hand is in,
you may as well settle. The children's schoolbills—
music, dancing, &c., for the last two quarters—
Justine's wages since May, and,” yawning, “really
I do not recollect, but my impression is, there
are a mass of them.”
“A mass of them—and where am I to get money
to pay them?”
“Indeed, I do not know, `ce n'est pas mon affaire.”'
“And what under heaven is your affair, but to
involve me in debt after debt, without care, and
without remorse?”
“If I have no remorse for contracting debts, I
think I should feel some if I were to adopt certain
modes of paying them.”
“What do you mean by that insinuation?” demanded
Layton, turning fiercely round upon his
wife.
“Oh, nothing—nothing—but that I should
scarcely have the heart to pay my debts by marrying
my child to” —
“To whom?—to what? speak out.”
“Well then, if I must speak out—to a villain.”
“A villain! have a care, madam—what right
have you to call Pedrillo a villain?”
“I believe him to be so.”
“On what authority?”
“The best authority.”
Nothing was farther from Mrs. Layton's intentions
when she first retorted her husband's reproaches,
than to involve herself in the necessity of
imparting the communication she had received from
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Gerald Roscoe at Trenton. This she knew to be
dishonorable in relation to Roscoe, and besides, she
meant to maintain the advantage of apparent ignorance
of the worse than doubtful character of Emilie's
lover. But the pleasure of recrimination overcame
her prudence, and she had committed herself
so far that she was obliged to proceed, and confess
that Roscoe had confided to her the story of the
little French girl, and had moreover told her, that
there were suspicions abroad that Pedrillo had been
connected with a desperate band of men on the
South American coast.
Layton flew into the most unbridled passion,
cursed her informer as an intermeddler, and the inventor
of a tale which he professed utterly to disbelieve—
threw out intimations of real or affected
jealousy of Roscoe, and concluded by saying, that
whatever was the reputation—whatever was the
real character of Pedrillo, they were too deeply involved
with him to retract. This Mrs. Layton believed,
and felt that she had unwittingly given her
husband the vantage ground. He had made the
contract of Emilie's marriage, as he professed, with
faith, in Pedrillo's integrity. She had acquiesced
in it believing in his depravity. He reproached
her with this. She alleged in defence his command,
and the reasons he had assigned for that command.
He retorted unqualified reproaches. She received
them in apathetic silence, evincing that if
she were not invulnerable, he at least could not
wound her. This conjugal scene was broken up by
a signal that lays many a foul domestic fiend—the
ringing of the door-bell. Mrs. Layton retired to
her own apartment, and Pedrillo was introduced.
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He had come on business, and fortunately, as he
said, had for once found Mr. Layton, and found him
alone. After very concise preliminaries, he said, with
the air of one who has a right to command, that he had
decided his marriage should take place in January.
The dictatorial manner in which he announced his
determination, would, at any time, have been offensive
to Layton's pride, but it was more than he
could bear in his present irritated state. He replied
that no one had a right to dictate his domestic
arrangements—that it still depended on his will
whether the marriage took place, or not.
“Does it so?” asked Pedrillo tauntingly. “What
has so suddenly changed the aspect of our relations?”
“The rein and the whip,” replied Layton, “may
change hands.”
Pedrillo demanded an explanation, and Layton
gave it, without alleviating with a doubt the dark
tale he unfolded. When he had professed to disbelieve
it, he shared the responsibility of the imputed
guilt with pedrillo. He now devolved the whole
weight on the shoulders of his principal, and he had
no longer a motive to lighten it. Pedrillo admitted
in full the affair at Abeille's, and treated it as a
mere bagatelle—a matter of course in the life of a
man of the world. The more serious charge, he
asserted was an entire fabrication—invented by
Roscoe in revenge of his superior success with the
French girl—the revenge of a jealous and discomfited
rival; or if not invented by him, it was an
idle rumor to which any stranger was liable, and to
which Roscoe had malignantly attempted to give
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force, and credibility. He was perfectly cool, and
self-possessed; and poor Layton, like the insect that
struggles for a moment to extricate himself from the
meshes of his enemy, became more passive and
helpless than ever. Pedrillo was not of a temper
to remain satisfied with simply eluding a blow. He
returned it with a poisoned shaft. His defeat at
Abéille's had been rankling in his bosom ever since,
but he could not resent it without bringing the
affair to light, and risking an inauspicious influence
on his suit to Emilie. He dared not pick a quarrel
with Roscoe, lest it should lead to investigations
that might prove inconvenient. A channel for his
resentment was now opened. With the nice art of
a superior mind, he adapted himself precisely to the
dimensions and force of the instrument with which
he was to operate. He made Layton feel, and feel
to his heart's core, that their interests were identified—
that they must sink or swim together; and
therefore that it was quite as important to his interest
as it could be to his (Pedrillo's) to repel Roscoe's
charges. Roscoe was next made to appear
in the light of an officious, impertinent intermeddler
in Layton's domestic affairs. He insinuated that
Roscoe had good reasons for cherishing that comtempt
for her husband which Mrs. Layton did not
scruple on any occasion to manifest. From insinuations
he proceeded to accusations. He said Roscoe's
visit to Trenton was only a part of a system
of devotion, to which Layton alone was blind. He
magnified Roscoe's little gallantries---recalled his
forgotten attentions, and gave to them meaning and
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importance, and finally filled Layton's confused and
darkened mind with images of wrong and insult.
Love is not so often as self-love, the parent of
jealousy. Layton's pride was wounded; not his
affections, and that combined with his consciousness
of guilt, and his secret rankling hatred of
Pedrillo, to work him up to a welding heat,
and Pedrillo perceived that he might give what
form he pleased to the expression of the unhappy
man's passions, when their conference was interrupted
by the entrance of a visiter.
Mr. Layton was in no humor to be broken in upon.
“Did not I tell you, Andrew,” he said to the
servant, “that I was not at home?”
“Oh, don't scold at Andrew!” said the visiter,
Mr. Flint, a man of peace and invincible good nature,
“he told me you were not at home, but I came
in with a little errand from Mr. Roscoe to Mrs.
Layton.”
“You did, did you? You are a particular friend
of Mr. Roscoe's—are you not?”
Mr. Flint had a decided partiality for intimacies
with those, who were graduated a little above him,
on the scale of gentility, and he answered unhesitatingly,
and with a smile not in the least checked by
Layton's rude and hurried manner, “that he was a
very intimate friend of Mr. Roscoe.”
“Then, sir, you will be kind enough to take back
an errand to Mr. Roscoe; and tell him, from me,
that he is a scoundrel.”
“Why, Mr. Layton! I declare I—I don't understand
you, sir.”
“Tell him then, that he is a d—d, impertinent,
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lying scoundrel. If he does not understand me, he
may send you back for an explanation.”
“That's no message for one gentleman to carry
to another, Mr. Layton; and I must be excused,
sir.” Flint began to suspect that Layton was heated
with wine, and he added, “if you have any real
offence with Mr. Roscoe, wait till to-morrow; a reasonable
resentment won't work off in a night, and
an unreasonable one will disappear with your
dreams.”
“Reserve your advice, sir, for your friend; he
will probably need it. Will you be the bearer of
my message?”
“No, sir, excuse me—I have no fancy for carrying
about fire-brands, especially, to throw in my
friend's bosom. Good night, sir. I really advise
you to be considerate—good night.” He went out,
but instantly returned. “Ah! Mr. Pedrillo, I forgot—
I put that little wax-head of my father into my
pocket, to show to you—here it is.”
Pedrillo took it, bit his lips, and turned around
to hold the image to the light; and as he did so, he
let it fall on the hearth-stone, and broke it to fragments.
“God bless me! Mr. Flint, I beg your
pardon.”
“You are very excusable, sir, but—but I had as
lief you had broken my head.”
On the same night, after his return to his lodgings,
Pedrillo wrote a letter to a friend in the West Indies,
from which the following passages are extracted.
“After all I may have made a false play; finess
“ed to my own loss; however, I am sure R. has no
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“proof to substantiate his story; and as we sons of
“fortune well know, there is a great gulf between
“suspicion and proof. Still, I may have made a
“false step; for though I would like to pay off all
“scores to that driveller, by Layton's hand, a duel
“is an uncertain mode of revenge, and if L. gets
“the worst of it, which he may, though a famous
“shot, I am dished. My adorable submits in holy
“obedience to the fiat of her father. If this is
“withdrawn, (thanks to my stars! death alone can
“withdraw it,) I shall lose her. By Heaven! Fe
“lix, the very thought of it, makes every drop of
“blood in my body rush to my brain.
“But I will not lose her! Did I ever relinquish
“any thing, on which I had fixed my grasp?
“I once knew a boy—he had lived scarce thirteen
“years in this wicked world, when a drover, return
“ing from market with a full purse, stopped at his
“father's house, an inn, no matter where. In the
“dead of night, the boy stole to the drover's room
“with a butcher's knife, recently whetted, in one
“hand. He slept so soundly, though the broad
“moon shone in his face, that the boy secured the
“purse, without using the knife. But it proved not
“useless. The boy's father had suspected, and fol
“lowed him; and while he was retreating back
“wards, his eye still fixed on the drover, his father
“grasped the purse; the boy was no match, for
“him in strength; in daring, he was a match for
“the devil; he could not extricate the purse by
“force; he raised the other hand, and gave a single
“effective stroke with the knife. The bloody fin
“gers (his father's!) relaxed their hold; the boy
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“retained the purse, mounted a prepared horse, and
“made his escape. Think you that a spirit kin
“dred to that boy's, and fortified with the sinews
“and muscle of a man, will relinquish an object on
“which his soul is fixed?
“I shall achieve a victory over this fellow, Ros
“coe, whether he fight or not. But he will fight;
“there is nothing in life a young man fears so
“much, as the scorn and ridicule of his companions;
“and though Roscoe takes a high tone, and has the
“reputation of spirit, (which, by the way, any man
“of his inches, muscle, erect-bearing, and flashing
“eye, may get,) yet he will not dare encounter the
“suspicion of sneaking. And yet he will, and he
“knows it, lose character by fighting. A duel
“is a ticklish affair, in this part of the world; dis
“creditable with all, but the independent corps
“who have broken the shackles of society, and the
“very young men who rant about the `code of
“honor,' their `fine sensibilities,' and such trash.
“Still, I think he will not dare refuse the chal
“lenge. I shall hang him on this horn of the di
“lemma.
“I meet — constantly. He has not the
“slightest suspicion; how should he have, he is
“scarce five and twenty; yet I dread and hate the
“sight of him. This evening he showed me a re
“semblance of his father, moulded in wax—it was
“like me. I crushed that likeness, and all form of
“humanity out of it.
“I am impatient to get away from this country;
“they have a way of their own, of inquiring out
“every thing. Those only who can afford to bear
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“the scrutiny, should live among them. I meant
“to have returned to Cuba, as soon as I had secur
“ed the funds in the hands of —, but the thread
“of destiny has been strangely spun about me;
“and I sometimess think that my cradle and my
“grave—Pshaw, this is drivelling.”
-- 018 --
CHAPTER II.
“But where you feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border,
Its slightest touches, instant pause—
Debar a' side pretences;
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences.”
Burns.
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“Mother,” said Gerald Roscoe, on the following
morning, as he was going out to his office, “I
expect a note from Mrs. Layton, about attending her
to the Theatre; be kind enough to open it, and if it
requires an answer, send it to me.” In the course
of the morning, the note came. Mrs. Roscoe opened
it. Instead of the expected contents, it ran
as follows. “To Gerald Roscoe, Esq.” “Sir; your
“interference in my family affairs, deserves some no
“tice on my part. Your devotion to the mother, is
“not of a nature to require that you should interest
“yourself in the morals of the lover of the daugh
“ter. I requested your intimate friend D. Flint,
“last night, to tell you, from me, that you were an
“impertinent, meddling, lying scoundrel. I now
“repeat it—and am ready to give you the satisfac
“tion of a gentleman, or to publish the above char
“acter to the world, with the addition of coward.
“Choose your alternative.
“Jasper Layton.”
Mrs. Roscoe read, and read again the note, and
felt as a mother must feel who sees the life and
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reputation of her son menaced. Her first impulse, as
soon as her agitation had so far subsided as to enable
her to form a purpose, was to go immediately to
Layton; to convince him that he was under some
fatal mistake (for this she never for a moment doubted);
and to intreat him, for her sake, to revoke his note.
But, on second thoughts, her good sense, her pride,
and just confidence in her son, revolted from this
feminine procedure. `Gerald shall not,' she thought,
`be saved by the cowardly shield of his mother!' She
then sat down and wrote him a note, saying, that
`the time had come to test the firmness of his principles;
' that in all their conversations on the dreadful
crime of duelling, he had admitted that it was
contrary to the plainest dictates of reason, and a
violation of the law of God. It was enough to remind
him of this, she would not urge any inferior
considerations. If he were not governed by his duty
to Heaven, she would not ask him to be influenced
by his love to her—by her dependence on him.
She abstained from expressing an emotion of tenderness,
or of fear. `I will not shackle him,' she
said—`but have I not already? Will not the fact
of my being privy to the note embarrass him? My
noble-minded son, I will trust you.' And, without
allowing herself time to shrink from her resolve, she
threw her own note into the fire, resealed Layton's
so carefully that Gerald could not suspect its having
been opened, and sent it to his office. Perhaps this
was rash confidence—it certainly would have been,
if she had any reason to doubt the strength of his
principles, or the firmness of his character; but she
trusted to something stronger than her own
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influence, to something more unerring in its guidance
and decision than her opinion—the enlightened conscience
of her son.
She knew that men, all men, are jealous, and
rightly so, of the interference of women in matters
that do not properly come under their cognizance.
She knew that they do not allow, even their just
weight, to feminine scruples and doubts, because
they believe them to have their source in constitutional
timidity. Did she not then act with prudence,
as well as true delicacy, in leaving the whole
affair where it exclusively belonged, in the hands of
her son?
But, though she had wrought her mind up to this
pitch of resolution and forbearance, she was a prey
to the anxieties and tormenting imaginations, so
natural to her sex. `Gerald may be influenced by
some hot-headed adviser—the principle that seems
strong in the hour of reason, calm discussion, and meditation,
is insufficient in the hour of passion—when
pride is stung by provocation—when the voice of
the world is in the ear, and the fear of God quails
before that of man's ridicule. Oh, my son, if
you should disappoint me!—if you should fall!—
or survive, the destroyer of another!'—These
thoughts, and a thousand other disjointed and
thick-coming fancies agitated her, and produced a
state of high nervous excitement. She heard the
street-door open. It was Gerald's step—some person
was with him. She awaited with breathless apprehension
the first glance at him—`his face will tell
me all,' she thought; but, instead of entering her
parlor, he passed hastily up stairs. She rang the
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bell. Miss Emma, the daughter of her hostess, appeared.
“Do you know who came in with Mr. Roscoe?”
“Mr. Flint. Mr. Roscoe said he had some particular
business with him, and he wished not to be
disturbed.—But, bless me, ma'am! are you ill?—
you are very pale.”
“I am not well.”
“Shall I sit here for a little while? you look faint,
I am afraid to leave you.”
“I am not faint, but you may sit down here,
Emma, if you will.”
There was something sedative in the quiet girl's
presence, and for a few moments Mrs. Roscoe was
tranquilized; but, like other inadequate sedatives,
it soon increased the irritation it should have allayed,
and Mrs. Roscoe dismissed her kind attendant,
saying, “My nerves are in a sad state to-day, Miss
Emma, even the pricking of your needle disturbs
me.”
Emma did not know that Mrs. Roscoe had nerves,
and she went away to relieve her wonder at seeing
her in this extraordinary condition, in the natural
way—by imparting it.
From that time till dinner, how heavily the hours—
the minutes dragged! One might believe that
duration, as philosophers have deemed of matter,
was ideal, from the length or brevity imparted to it
by the mind. Dinner came at its accustomed hour,
and Roscoe appeared as usual to all eyes but his
mother's. She observed an unusual seriousness and
abstraction, evinced by his not noticing her altered
appearance, though it was repeatedly remarked by
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other members of the family; but when she spoke,
though merely to decline a common courtesy of the
table, the thrilling tone of her voice startled him.
“Are you not well?” he asked, and for an instant
he looked earnestly at her; but his thoughts
instantly reverted to a secret anxiety, and not waiting
her reply, or scarcely noticing whether she replied,
he abruptly withdrew from the table, and left
the house. Mrs. Roscoe retired to her own room.
When summoned to tea, she was found reclining on
her sofa, in a high fever. She inquired for her son.
He was writing in his own room—`would she have
him called?' “No,” she said firmly, and `no,' she repeated
to herself,' `he has not offered me his confidence.
Oh Heaven! if I have erred—it may be too
late, even now, to repair my error!
Those alone can enter perfectly into Mrs. Roscoe's
feelings, who have garnered up their hearts in the
virtue of the individual most precious to them. This
was the treasure dearer than reputation, than safety,
than existence. She was no Spartan mother, and she
had the common shrinking from a mortal combat;
but, to do full justice to her noble and elevated spirit,
it was not the personal risk she most dreaded, it was
the crime of murder, in the eye of the immutable law
of God—for such she deemed duelling, stripped of all
the illusion that custom, false reasoning, and brilliant
names, have thrown around it. Her principles,
her feeling, her pride, were shocked; she had believed
Gerald superior to the influences that sway
common minds, and now, in the very first temptation,
had he sinned against the clearest convictions
of his intellect, and the strongest resolutions of his
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[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]
virtue—had he degraded himself to the level of a
worldly and almost obsolete code of honor? But,
if he had been infirm of purpose, might she not yet
save him? If he had proved her confidence rash
and weak, ought she not now to interpose? It was a
false delicacy to surrender the sacred right of a
mother! Mrs. Roscoe did not longer balance these
thoughts, but obeyed their impulse, and hastened to
Gerald's apartment. He was not there. A note,
directed to her, was lying on the table. It contained
but a line, saying, that as he understood she
was indisposed, he had not seen her, but left the note
to inform her that he was obliged to go out of town
on business of some importance, and might not return
till the next evening.
It was then too late! and Mrs. Roscoe returned to
her own room to pass the agonizing watches of a sleepless
night, in vain regrets and torturing apprehension.
The morning came, but it brought no relief—hour
passed after hour, each sadder than the last. Every
sound rung an alarm-bell to her ear. Every approaching
footstep menaced her with misery. She
wondered, as those do whose minds are concentrated
on one harrowing thought, to see the passersby
bowing and smiling, and coolly pursuing their
customary occupations, and the inmates of the house
setting about their usual employments, and making
preparations for dinner as if it were worth caring
about. But the dinner—that diurnal circumstance
that maintains its dignity through all the seven
stages of man's life—that neither joy nor sorrow,
birth nor death, prevents—the dinner came, and by
all but Mrs. Roscoe was as usual eaten and enjoyed.
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She remained in her apartment alone, meditating
on the images her imagination had conjured up,
when a carriage stopped at the door. Gerald was
in it, pale as death, and supported on the arm of a
stranger, he was conducted into the house. Mrs.
Roscoe threw open the door. “Do not be alarmed,
my dear mother,” said he, “I have received a trifling
wound—I assure you it's nothing more;” and
then courteously thanking the stranger for the aid
he had rendered him, he lay down on the sofa, and
the gentleman withdrew.
Gerald threw back his cloak, and discovered his
arm, from which his coat sleeve had been cut. His
linen was drenched in blood. “It is a mere flesh
wound,” he said, “and has been already welldressed
by a surgeon. There is indeed no occasion
for your fright, my dear mother,” for so he interpreted
her gaze and colorless cheek. “You
have no sickly feeling at the sight of blood—come,
sit by me, and I will tell you all about it. Let me
put my arm around you. I shall not, like the gallant
Nelson, give you my wounded arm. Do
speak to me—kiss me, mother.”
All the mother had rushed to her heart at the
sight of her son, alive, and safe. Joy that he was
so, was the first fervent emotion of her soul. His
tenderness overcame her. She sunk on her knees
beside him, and clasping her hands, exclaimed,
“Oh God, forgive him!” and then dropping her
face on his breast and bursting into tears, she added,
“Gerald, how could you disappoint me so
cruelly?” An explanation followed.
As Roscoe's relation to his mother was brief, and
-- 025 --
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imperfect, and as the merit of a modest man is never
placed in full relief in an auto-biography, we shall
resume our narrative at our hero's receipt of Layton's
note. Roscoe was at a loss to conjecture
what could have stimulated him to such an expression
of resentment for an offence given some months
before. The intimation against Mrs. Layton, he
would not for a moment admit as a solution of the
mystery. `It is possible,' he thought, `that Flint
may explain it, and as he is alluded to, though he
is not my `intimate friend,' and not precisely the
man I should have selected for my confidence, yet
he is an honest fellow, and may be useful in affording
me some clue.' Flint, by his request, met him
at his lodgings, and as soon as they were closeted
in his room, Roscoe showed him the note. Flint
related what had passed the preceding evening;
but this threw no light on the affair, and Roscoe,
after a little farther consideration, arrived at the
just conclusion that Mrs. Layton, in a moment
of conjugal pique, had betrayed his interview
with her at Trenton, and that Layton had been
stimulated by Pedrillo to this expression of his resentment
and jealousy. When Roscoe had arrived
at, and communicated his conclusions to Flint, that
gentleman had a hard struggle between his good
nature, his real regard for Gerald Roscoe, his desire
to participate in a stirring affair, and his sense
of right. The latter, as it should, triumphed.
“Well,” he said, “I really am sorry for you,
Roscoe. I have no fear to fight myself, or back a
friend, in a good cause; but one must have that, to
go at it with real pluck. One must be willing to
-- 026 --
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take his principal's place in all respects—that is,
Roscoe—for I will be frank with you—one is supposed
to approve, as well as espouse his friend's
quarrel, and so I really must wash my hands of the
whole affair.”
“Really, my good friend, I am not aware that
I have asked your participation in any affair—but
I should like to know how I have alarmed your
conscience?”
“Why I don't like to hurt your feelings, Roscoe—
but I do think it is a condemned rascally business
to be too attentive to another man's wife.”
“If by `too attentive' you mean, Flint, to express
gallantries which afford a foundation for Layton's
jealousy, I assure you, on my honor, that he has
done foul injustice to his wife and to myself.”
“Thank the Lord,” cried Flint, rubbing his
hands and pluming the wings of his active spirit for
adventure, “then I'm your man, Roscoe—we'll
give 'em as good as they send. `Impertinent lying
scoundrel' indeed! The words have been ringing
in my ears ever since last night. I am right glad
you don't deserve a shadow of them. You must
overlook my misgivings. Mrs. Layton is a very
sensible lady, but then you know she is not a person
that one feels quite sure of—and I have thought
myself sometimes that she was so partial to you it
might turn your head.”
“Thank you for your solicitude. A head of
weightier material than mine might be made giddy
by the preference of such a woman as Mrs. Layton,
and that mine is not, is a proof, not of my virtue,
but that she has not essayed her powers against it.”
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“Ah, that is very well—give the d—l his due,
and a woman more than her due, is a good rule.”
“For the cour d'amour it may be—but I speak,
Flint, according to the forms of a court with which
you and I are more familiar—the truth—the whole
truth—and nothing but the truth.”
“Well, I am glad of it. I am entirely satisfied,
I warrant you. Now let us proceed to assure the
gentleman he shall have the satisfaction he demands.”
Roscoe was amused with the half kind-hearted,
half officious, and truly characteristic eagerness
with which Flint had made himself part and parcel
of the whole affair; but accident had admitted him
to his confidence, and he felt that there would be
rather more pride than delicacy in now excluding
him. “I have no intention of ever giving that
satisfaction,” he replied.
“What!” exclaimed Flint, and never was more
surprise and amazement expressed in one word.
Roscoe calmly repeated.
“Why, Roscoe!” and he added in a tone in
which he never spoke before or since—lowered and
faltering, “you ar'n't afraid—are you?”
Roscoe smiled. “Did ever man plead guilty to
such an interrogatory, Flint? I honestly believe
most duellists might, and that they go out because
they fear the laugh of the world, and the suspicion
of cowardice, more than they fear death, or the
judgment after death. The greater fear masters
the less. Moreau said he could make any coward
fight well, by making him more afraid to retreat
than to advance. It is a fear paramount to my fear
-- 028 --
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
of the world's laugh that would compel me, in all
circumstances, to refuse to fight—or rather, to express
myself in terms more soothing to my self-love—
that would inspire me with courage not to fight.”
“Oh, I understand you now—you are afraid of
killing a man.”
“That would be disagreeable, Flint; but I might
avoid that, you know, and I should be quite as
much afraid of being killed. As to both these fears,
I plead not guilty.”
“Well then, for mercy's sake, what is your fear?”
“The fear of God—the fear of violating his
law.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Flint, with the satisfaction of
one who has been scrambling through a tangled
path, and suddenly emerges into the high-way,
“Oh, Roscoe, I did not know you was a professor!”
Professor, with the largest part of Christians in
New England, of which part of our country Mr.
Flint had the honor to be a native, is the technical
term for an individual who is enrolled as a memberof
a particular church, and has partaken its
sacraments. “To be sure,” he added, “you are
pledged if you are a professor, and you have a perfect
excuse for getting off, if you choose.”
“But I shall not allege that ground of excuse,
which has always seemed to me like the pretext
of a boy when caught, `I said no play.' And
indeed I am not a professor, nor pledged any more
than every man is who confesses himself responsible
to the Supreme Being. Does not that single and
almost universally admitted article of belief require
-- 029 --
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
us to cherish the gift of life, and to apply it to the
purposes for which it was bestowed? I honor the
sentiment in which duelling originated. It is a
modification of the same principle that made the
martyr. The principle that truth and honor are
better than life. But their application is widely
different. The martyr offers his life to support
what he believes to be divine truth, and in obedience
to the divine law, which demands fidelity to
that truth. The duellist surrenders his life to the
false and fantastical laws of the court of honor, and
in direct violation of the law of Heaven.”
“Well, I declare, Roscoe, I never thought of all
that.”
“No, my good friend, but `all that' and a great
deal more you, and every man of sense and just
feeling, would think of, if you applied your minds to
the subject before the exigency for action occurs.”
“How comes it then,” asked Flint, who could
not at once elevate himself above the atmosphere of
human authority, “how comes it then that so many
great and good men have fought duels?”
“I deny that many good and great men have
fought duels. Would to Heaven there had not been,
most conspicuous among them, the noble name of
that man, whose fine intellect, and generous affections
were lavished on his country, but who threw a
dreadful weight into the balance against all the
good he had done her, when he gave the authority
of his name to this barbarous practice.”
“But I guess, Roscoe, that last act of his life was
blotted out by the tears of the recording angel, as
they say.”
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
“I hope so; but I would rather trust to its being
effaced by his reluctance to yield himself to the
slavery of usage, and by his deep subsequent penitence,
than to the tears of the recording angel, who,
since he let fall the drop on the Corporal's oath,
has been made to shed such oceans over human infirmity,
that the fountain must be pretty nearly exhausted.”
“Well,” said Flint, after a little meditation, “I
believe you are right; but let me ask you one candid
question, Roscoe. Don't you expect to lose
reputation by refusing to fight?”
“You set me a noble example of candor in your
home questions, Flint,” replied Roscoe, smiling,
“and I will answer you candidly, that with a certain
class I do. But they happen to be those whose
opinions I do not particularly value; and even if I
lost reputation with the most dignified portion of
society, with all society, it would not alter the merits
of the question. Reputation must be graduated
according to the opinions of the community we live
in—they are a party to it. My character is my
own; no man can give it, and, thank God no man
can take it away—it is a sacred trust confided to
me alone.”
“Then it would not alter your views, if you lived
in Kentucky, or Georgia?”
“Certainly not my views, for the rule that governs
me is of universal authority. But I dare not assume
that I should have the courage there to abide
by my principles. Few men's morals are superior
to the standard that obtains in the community in
which they reside; and even if their theory is better,
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
it requires more moral heroism than most men possess
to put in practice. Therefore the latitude in
which a man lives should affect our estimation of the
turpitude of the crime. In New York we have no
such extenuation; the opinion of the enlightened is
against duelling, as a most unreasonable as well as
criminal practice. The good sense of the community
is against it, and a man really gets no honor
for an affair, but with a few scores of half-fledged
boys, and men of doubtful principles, whose opinions
or conduct would never be quoted on any
point of morals. In New England it is even
better than here. There the universal sense is
against it, and there a man is disgraced by fighting
a duel; and you, I think, Flint, would be the last
man to pronounce your countrymen wanting in
courage, or a nice sense of honor.”
“That I should; and if any man accused them
of it, I would”—he paused; his mind was in a new
region, and he was not sure how far his friend went
in rejecting all militant demonstrations.
Roscoe supplied the hiatus, “fight them, hey,
Flint?”
“No, Roscoe, I would get you to convince them.”
“Spoken en avocat, my good fellow, and be
assured you may command my pacific efforts at any
tïme, in return for your offer of a hazardous service,
for which I am really obliged to you.”
“Roscoe opened his writing desk, and Flint reluctantly
took his leave to withdraw.”
“I declare,” he said, and with evident sincerity,
“I should like to do something about it—sha'nt
I carry your note, Roscoe?”
-- 032 --
[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
“No, I thank you; I believe such servile offices
are dignified only when done in the service of Mars.”
“What do you mean to write?”
“What I should in any other case—the simple
truth.”
“Supposing he posts you?”
“That I can't help.”
“Supposing he offers to cane you?”
“That, please Heaven, I shall help.”
“And return, won't you?”
“To the very best of my ability, Flint.”
“I am glad of that—I am glad of that. I was
afraid you believed in non-resistance. I hope you
will have a chance—good morning;” and quite
satisfied, and in high good humor, he departed.
He had gone quite down the stairs, when he returned,
ran up to Roscoe's room, and stood with the door
in his hand, saying,
“I meant to have told you that I always thought
there was no reason in it; for instance, if you had
wronged Layton as much as he thinks for, what
good could it do him to lose his life or take yours?
I knew they didn't fight duels in New England, but
I wonder I did not think of it. They are always
beforehand with every improvement in New England.”
“Yes,” said Roscoe, bowing in token of his acquiescence
in his friend's complacent nationality;
“yes, Flint, the sun always rises in the east—but
good morning; at this rate it will set with us before
I have finished my note”—and thus definitely dismissed,
Flint took his final departure.
-- 033 --
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
“Sir,—As duelling is, in my estimation, a viola
“tion of the immutable law of God, and can never
“be a reparation, or an atonement for an injury, I
“should in every supposable case avoid giving, and
“decline receiving, the `satisfaction of a gentleman,'
“in the technical acceptation of that phrase. Any
“other mode of satisfaction which a just and honor
“able man may give or require, for real or fancied
“injuries, I am ready to afford you, and shall de
“mand from you.
“From the words which you have made emphatic
“in your note, I must infer that you have lent your
“ear to base insinuations touching the honor of
“your wife. Be assured, sir, that I have never
“presumed to address a gallantry to Mrs. Layton,
“which might not have been offered in the presence
“of her husband and children.
“Your assertion that I have meddled with your
“family affairs is not without foundation. I did
“meddle with them so far as to apprise Mrs. Lay
“ton of the real character of her daughter's suitor.
“How far a disinterested effort to prevent the
“alliance of your child with a man who to my
“certain knowledge, has been guilty of base con
“duct, and who lies under the suspicion of foul
“crimes—how far such an effort deserves the father's
“resentment, I mnst beg you deliberately to esti
“mate.
“You have bestowed on me epithets, which you
“will do well for your own sake, to recall. Thank
-- 034 --
[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
“God, I do not deserve them, and therefore cannot,
“on my own account, invest them with the slightest
“importance.
Your ob't servant,
“G. Roscoe.”
Roscoe despatched his note, and, as has been
seen, joined his mother at dinner. Not suspecting
she was acquainted with the affair, he did not guard
against his apparent absence of mind, but suffered
his thoughts to run in their natural channel.
Though perfectly assured in the course he had adopted
he felt, as may be imagined, a deep interest in the
effect of his note on Layton, and the final issue of
the business; and he did not, it must be confessed,
feel quite so composed and apathetic under the burden
of the stinging epithets bestowed by Layton,
as he assumed to be, or as he honestly thought he
ought to be. Most men would rather die a thousand
deaths, than in the eye of the world deserve
such words; and though idle breath they be, and
from a despised source, yet with a man of high honor
and susceptible feeling, they wound more painfully
than the keenest weapon.
After dinner, Roscoe as usual went to his office.
He heard nothing farther from Layton. In the afternoon,
he was obliged, as he had alleged to his
mother, to leave town on professional business. He
did not return till the following afternoon. He was
then hastily walking up town. There was, as usual
at that hour of the day, a press in Broadway, and
he was turning into Park-place to avoid it; when
he saw Layton and Pedrillo coming toward him.
He could not then proceed up the street, or stop,
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
without evidently doing it in relation to them; and
he pursued, but very slowly, the way he had intended.
He heard hurried footsteps behind him. He
slackened his pace, and he heard Layton say in a
loud voice, “the cowardly rascal hopes to escape
us.”
Roscoe turned short round. “Do you mean that
for me, sir?” he demanded.
“Yes,” replied Layton, “and I mean this for
you;” and as he spoke, he elevated a heavy cane,
and aimed a blow at Roscoe, but the weapon did
not touch him, he parried it, and grappled with
Layton—a desperate struggle ensued. Roscoe unfortunately
was embarrassed by a cloak, his foot
was entangled, and he staggered backwards; Layton
perceived his advantage and pressed on him
with redoubled vigor; Roscoe had nearly fallen to
the ground, when the fastening of the cloak gave
way; it fell off, and disencumbered, he sprang forward,
and by superior strength, or skill, or coolness,
succeeded in wresting the cane from Layton's
hand. When the resistance of his struggle ceased,
Layton recoiled several feet. Roscoe maintained
his ground. Pedrillo sprang towards Layton, and
gave him his cane. “Do your business quickly,”
he said, and added in a voice, audible only to Layton,
“you are no match for him in strength—touch
the spring.”
Roscoe threw down the weapon which he had
wrested from his adversary, as if he disdained any
other aid than the stout arm, that had already
achieved one victory, and met Layton more than
half way, as he advanced towards him. The
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
passengers in the street had now taken the alarm,
and were rushing towards the scene of contest.
Some natural lovers of `the fancy,' shouted `fair
play,' `fair play,' `take away the cane!' The possession
of this weapon, however, gave Layton, perhaps
no more than an equality with his superior antagonist.
Roscoe eluded his blow, and they again
grappled. The street now rung with the pacific
cries of `separate them!—part them!'—but before
a hand could be interposed, Layton fell in the fierce
encounter, and stung with the consciousness of being
a second time overcome, and maddened with passion,
he obeyed Pedrillo's injunction, and touched a
spring that gave an impulse to a dirk concealed in
the cane. If he had willed it so, it was not possible
in his hampered position to direct the weapon; fortunately
the random stroke touched no vital point,
but merely penetrated a fleshy part of the arm. Layton
had no nerves for a bloody business; and Roscoe
easily extricated the cane from his relaxing grasp,
withdrew the blade from his arm, and before it was
observed, or even suspected by the spectators, that
he had received a wound, he released Layton,
adroitly returned the blade to its case, and the cane
to his antagonist, saying in a low voice, “guard
against such accidents in future.” His cloak was
lying on the ground; he hastily wrapped it around
him, to conceal the blood that he felt to be penetrating
his garments. One of the spectators, of quicker
and cooler observation than the rest, had from
the motions of the parties, suspected foul play. He
saw that Roscoe, though perfectly cool and undaunted,
had the mortal paleness, that is incident to a
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
sudden loss of blood; and looking narrowly at him,
he perceived the blood trickling from beneath his
cloak. “The gentleman is wounded!” he cried.
The mob, ever greedy of excitement, caught the
words, and `foul play!' `foul play!' `seize the
fellow!' rung from one to another. Layton had
joined Pedrillo, and arm in arm with him, was
walking away at a hurried pace, when half a dozen
hands arested him at once. “I beseech you,
my friends,” said Roscoe, who was no obliged to
lean against an iron railing for support, “I beseech
you to release that gentleman. I am sure my
wound was accidental.”
“Those that carry edged tools, must answer for
them!” shouted one.
“Yes, yes,” cried another, elevating the cane
he had snatched from Layton, “see here, this dirk
requires a nice hand and strong pressure—off to the
police office with him.”
“My friends,” repeated Roscoe, “I entreat you
to hear me. You are doing injustice. The gentleman
attacked me with a common cane; such as
half a dozen among you have in your hands at this
moment.” He then proceeded so earnestly and
skilfully, to place the suspicious circumstance in
the most favorable light for Layton, that if he did
not remove all doubt, he prevented its expression, and
Layton, who had suffered the severest punishment
in listening to his own unmerited vindication from
Roscoe's lips, was at length permitted to proceed
without further molestation, and with the mortifying
conviction, that he had been involved in a foolish
quarrel, and set on to a cowardly revenge by
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
Pedrillo. In the wreck of his character, there was still
left enough of manly feeling, to be touched by Roscoe's
magnanimity; but the faint spark that might
have been cherished into life and action, was deadened
by the presence of his evil genius.
Roscoe was put into a carriage, and conveyed to
a surgeon's; and thence, as has been seen, to his
mother's. His conduct was the general theme of
the hour's applause. His physical superiority, (the
want of which a mob never pardons,) gave a value
and grace to his generosity. It was equally manifest
that there is in the bosoms of men, the rudest,
most ignorant, and vulgar, a chord that responds to
every unequivocal manifestation of moral superiority.
-- 039 --
CHAPTER III.
“Il faut briguer Ia faveur de ceux à qui l'on vent de bien, plûtot
que de ceux de qui l'on espère du bien.”
La Bruyere.
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
On the morning following their rencontre, Layton
sent a half apologetic letter to Roscoe. The
conflict was apparent between his sense of justice
and gentlemanly feeling on the one side, and his
pride and humiliation on the other. Roscoe was
satisfied, and heartily pitied him, but of course there
could be no renewal of their intercourse. Mrs.
Layton deplored the privation of Roscoe's exciting
society, and after deeply considering how she could
best solace herself for the loss, she addressed a letter
to Gertrude Clarence, to which the following is a
reply:
“Clarenceville, 1st Nov. 18—.
“My dear friend—It is almost cruel of you to
“enforce your kind invitation with such glowing
“pictures of the variety and excitement of a winter
“in New York, and quite barbarous to ask me if I
“do not begin to feel the ennui of country life, when
“I am obliged to confess that I do. Since my return
“from Trenton, I have felt a craving that `country-
“contentments' do not satisfy. I used to go round
“and round in the same circle, and experience nei
“ther satiety nor deficiency. I read and study as
“usual with my father, but the spirit is gone. I
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
“used to find amusement in the occasional visits of
“our simple village friends, and could, without
“effort, manifest the expected interest in the suc
“cess of an application for a new bank, or turn
“pike-road, or the formation of a new `society.'
“I could listen with becoming attention to Col.
“Norton's stories of the revolution, though I knew
“them all by heart—to good old Mrs. Wyman's
“graphic details of her anomalous diseases, and
“even to your friend Mrs. Upton's domestic chro
“nicles. I have ridden half a dozen miles to find
“out whether our pretty little busy bee, Sally Ellis,
“or her bouncing notable rival obtained the pre
“mium for the best flannel at the fair, and—dare I
“confess it to you, Mrs. Layton?—I have been as
“eager to know which of our rustic friends re
“ceived the premiums of the Agricultural Society
“—premiums for rich crops and fat bullocks—as if
“they were the crowns decreed in Olympian games.
“But, alas! it is all over now—these things move
“me no longer. I have not opened my piano since
“the Marions left us, and my drawing, my former
“delight, I have abandoned. It is too indissolubly
“associated with the sad memory of Louis Seton.
“If you love me, my dear Mrs. Layton, spare me
“any farther raillery on this subject—I cannot
“bear it. I have known nothing in my short life,
“so painful as being the accidental cause of suffer
“ing to a mind, pure, elevated, and susceptible as
“Louis Seton's, and certainly nothing so perplex
“ing to my faith, as that such a mind should be
“doomed to misery! My father, who is my ora
“cle in all dark matters, says these are mysteries of
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
“which we must quietly await the solution—that we
“are here as travellers in a strange and misty
“country, where objects are seen obscurely, and
“their relations and dependencies are quite hidden.
“But we are safe while we fix the eye of faith on
“the goodness of Providence—His perfect, illimit
“able, and immutable goodness. This is the bea
“con-light—the central truth of the moral universe.
“I am announcing high speculations in a very
“metaphysical sort of a way; but I am as the
“humble cottager who receives through her narrow
“window a few rays of light—few, but sufficient to
“brighten her small sphere of duty, and to preserve
“her from either faltering or fear.
“Why do I not hear from my dear Emilie?
“Why are you silent in relation to her? Must I
“give the natural interpretation to this silence?
“Marion staid with us a month, and though we
“made every effort to animate him, his melancholy
“did not relax in the least. I wish, if you have an
“apt occasion, you would assure Mr. Gerald Ros
“coe that he has been misinformed—that Randolph
“Marion has not been `paying his court to the
“great heiress.' I believe I quote Mr. Roscoe's
“flattering words. Poor Randolph! his destiny
“is a far more enviable one, suffering as it may be,
“than a heartless devotion to an heiress.”
“I was interrupted by a summons from my fa
“ther. He has made it his request that I should
“accept your invitation. You know I could only
“go by his request. `He cannot,' he says, `stay at
“Clarenceville without me, and a tour through the
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
“southern states may benefit his health.' Thus it
“is all delightfully arranged, and I shall be with
“you in the course of ten days.
“My father's southern tour may confirm your
“suspicions in relation to Miss Marion. You cer
“tainly condole with me, most gracefully, on the
“prospect of a step-mother, and the possible con
“tingency of a divided, and subdivided inherit
“ance. Honestly, my dear Mrs. Layton, such
“probabilities would, in my opinion, make me a
“subject rather of congratulation, than condolence.
“Miss Marion's visit to us has confirmed all my
“predilections in her favor. She is intelligent, ac
“tive, and gay. Her gaiety is the sparkling of a
“clear and pure fountain—and, my father says, the
“result of a happy physical constitution; for you
“know, he thinks with the French-woman, `que
“tout cela dépend de la maniére que le sang circule.'
“You may think this view of my friend precludes
“sentiment—or that my father is past the period of
“romantic attachment; but I doubt if age, or ac
“cident, or any thing but voluntary abuse, can
“deprive the affections of their finest essence.
“There is, I assure you, in neither party a want of
“sentiment, nor an excess of it—no obstacle what
“ever to the event you predict, but such as the
“world never takes account of when it sends forth
“its rumors. The parties themselves have never
“thought of it, and have both an entire indisposi
“tion to matrimony. These, you know, may be as
“effective obstacles as that only one which poor Sir
“Hugh's benevolent efforts could not overcome in
“the case of Dr. Orkborne and Miss Margland—
“their `mortal mutual aversion.'
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[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
“But I am spinning out my letter when my
“thoughts are busy with the delight of seeing you.
“Adieu then till we meet. My tenderest love to
“Emilie.
Most affectionately yours,
“Gertrude Clarence.”
Miss Clarence, after mending her pen, laying it
down and resuming it half a dozen times, added the
following postscript. Every body knows a lady's
P. S. contains that which is nearest her heart.
“P. S. I am exceedingly obliged to you, my
“dear Mrs. L., for your assurance that you have
“been mindful of my request that you would not
“mention to your friend, G. R., the fact of my
“having been at Trenton with you. You ridicule
“what you call a `true femality,' and define that
“to be something without rhyme or reason. But
“you say you love me the better for it, and I am
“content with whatever produces this result.
“G. C.”
At the appointed time Miss Clarence arrived in
New York, and was welcomed by Mrs. Layton and
Emilie with unequivocal demonstrations of joy.
Mr. Layton, too, received her with the courtesy of
a man of the world. Scarcely aware of the strength
of her prejudices against him, she was surprised at
his agreeable exterior, and bland manners. He had
originally been very handsome, and though his
heavy drooping eye-lids, and mottled cheek, indicated
a man of irregular habits, his features still retained
the beauty of symmetry, and his figure the
ease and grace of a man of fashion.
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There was an air of luxury and refinement in Mrs.
Layton's establishment, beyond that usually produced
by the union of fortune and fashion. Her
taste and imagination, and that love of the recherch
ée, that is perhaps a subtle form of vanity,
had led her to avoid whatever was common-place.
Even the names of her children indicated her artificial
taste. She relieved the simplicity of Emily, a
name adopted in compliment to her grandmother, by
giving it a French termination; and subsequently
gratified her fancy by selecting for her younger
children the rare names of Gabrielle, Victorine,
Julian, and Eugene. In the arrangement of her
house, she avoided the usual modes of vulgar
wealth. She tolerated no servile imitation of French
ornament; no vases of flaunting artificial flowers, in
full eternal bloom; no pier tables covered with
French china, kept for show, not `wisely,' and looking
much like a porcelain dealer's specimens,
or a little girl's baby-house; no guady time-piece,
confounding all mythology, or, like the Roman
Pantheon, embracing all; in short, there was nothing
common-place, nothing that indicated the uninspired,
undirected art of the fabricator. The very
curtains and carpets betrayed, in their web, the fancy
of the fair mistress of the mansion. There were
few ornaments in the apartments, but they were of
the most exquisite and costly kinds. Lamps of the
purest classic form—the prettiest alumette cases and
fire-skreens that ever came from the hand of a gifted
Parisienne—flowers compounded of shells, and
wrought into card-racks, that might have served
the pretty Naiads themselves, if perchance visiting
-- 045 --
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cards are the tokens of sub-marine courtesies, and a
Cupid, of Italian sculpture, bearing on his wing
a time-piece, and looking askance, with a mischievous
smile, at this emblem of the sternest of
tyrants.
On a pedestal in one corner of one of the drawing-rooms,
stood a bust of the Princess Borghese,
said to bear a striking resemblance to Mrs. Layton,
and on that account presented to her by a
young Italian, who had given her lessons, en amateur,
in his native language. Opposite to it was
a Cupid and Psyche.
Connected with the drawing-rooms there was a
library, filled with the flowers of foreign literature,
and the popular productions of the day, and
embellished with a veiled copy of Vanderlyn's
Ariadne, and a beautiful portrait of Mrs. Layton,
in the character of Armida. We do not furnish
inventories, but merely data, to indicate the character
of that establishment in which our heroine
was now to be introduced to the society of New
York. So much of it as was comprised within
the large and fashionable circle of Mrs. Layton's
acquaintance, poured in upon her on the first notice
of her arrival, to offer courtesies in every accredited
form.
Mr. Clarence was detained for a few days in
Albany. When he rejoined his daughter in New
York, and as soon as the first greetings were over,
he said, “Of course, my child, you have explained
to Gerald Roscoe the Trenton affair?”
We ought to state, that Gertrude after the
-- 046 --
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disappearance of Seton, communicated to her father the
story of the eventful night at Trenton. We will
not say that she was quite as confidential to him as
we have been to our readers, but she was as much
so as could reasonably be expected; that is, she
communicated the leading facts, which bore about
the same proportion to the emotions they had elicited,
as a little fire does to the volume of smoke that
evolves from it. Gertrude replied to her father's
interrogatory, “I have not seen Mr. Roscoe.”
“Not seen him! that's most extraordinary. He
certainly knows you are in town, for he has replied
to the letter I sent by you. My child! you are
ruining the lock of that work-box.”
She was zealously turning and re-turning the
key. “Mr. Roscoe does not, I believe, visit here
now,” she replied; “Mrs. Layton says he has some
coolness with her husband.”
“That's no reason why he should not pay his
respects to you. Of course Mrs. Roscoe has
called?”
“No, papa—she does not visit Mrs. Layton.”
“Nonsense! my oldest and dearest friends to
stand on such punctilios as these; I do not understand
it—it is not like them. I shall go immediately
and find out the meaning of it.”
“Oh, papa!” Gertrude checked the remonstrance
that rose to her lips, and merely said, “At
least, I beg you will say nothing to Gerald Roscoe
of my having been the person whom he met at
Trenton.”
“Certainly not—if you choose to have the pleasure
of surprising him when you meet—well, there's
-- 047 --
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no harm in that;” and away went Mr. Clarence on
a quest that was destined to prove rather unsatisfactory.
Gertrude mistook in supposing that Mrs. Roscoe
had not called on her. Eager to see and to pay
every respect to the daughter of her friend, she went
to Mrs. Layton's on the very first day of Gertrude's
arrival. Miss Clarence was at home, but it did not
quite suit the convenience of the servant, whose
affairs were in arrears, that she should be so, and he
refused her, received Mrs. Roscoe's card, and suppressed
it. On the following day Mrs. Roscoe
wrote a note to Miss Clarence, saying, that she was
unfortunately prevented by indisposition from repeating
her call on that day, expressing her earnest
desire to see her, &c. &c. The note was sent, but
mislaid at Mrs. Layton's, and never reached Gertrude.
Two days after she again called, was told
Miss Clarence was at home, and was shown into the
parlor, and announced to Miss Layton, who was
receiving morning company. Mrs. Layton was not
present. Miss Layton did not know Mrs. Roscoe,
and did not hear the name distinctly; and the coldness
and seeming indifference which the poor girl
now manifested alike to all, Mrs. Roscoe fancied
was marked to her. Visiter after visiter appeared.
It chanced that there were one or two among them,
who had formerly courted even a look from Mrs.
Roscoe, and who now recognised her with a supercilious
bow, or what is far more annoying, a greeting
evidently meant to be condescending. Mrs.
Roscoe was entirely superior to their slights or favors,
but not to being disturbed by their ignorance
-- 048 --
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that she was so. Her own delicacy forbade her enlightening
them and, with her impatience aggravated
by these little irritations, she sat for a full half hour
watching every opening of the door. No one can
possibly estimate, or it may be, excuse her vexation,
who has not waited for half an hour, and at the end
of it been told, as she was, by the heedless servant,
“Oh, ma'am, I thought you inquired for the ladies—
Miss Clarence is not at home.” Miss Layton
now perceived that the lady had suffered some
negligence, and she advanced with an apology.
Mrs. Roscoe left her compliments for Miss Clarence,
and withdrew. Pedrillo entered as Mrs. Roscoe
retired, and so suddenly and completely displaced
her image, that Emilie never thought of her again.
These little mistakes and neglects left both parties
with the impression that each was aggrieved. Gertrude,
of course, never returned the visits, and Mrs.
Roscoe did not repeat them.
Mr. Clarence went to Mrs. Roscoe's lodgings, in
the full confidence of a satisfactory éclaircissement.
He was sincerely and deeply attached to the Roscoes;
and certainly, the strongest wish of his heart,
was, that his daughter should be favorably known
to them; but he was far too proud of her, and too
delicate, to solicit even Gerald Roscoe's attentions.
He was told that Mrs. Roscoe was at home, but
`engaged.' He sent up his card, with a request to
see her. She was really indispensably engaged,
but she did not think it worth while to detain him
with an explanation of particulars; and she returned
word that she was extremely sorry, but she could
not then see Mr. Clarence. He left a request that
-- 049 --
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Mr. Roscoe would call at his lodgings, in the course
of the day, and went away more annoyed than he
was willing to admit, even to himself.
Roscoe was out of town, and did not return till
late at night. In the morning, before breakfast, he
called on Mr. Clarence. Before breakfast, as our
readers well know, was the dark hour to Mr. Clarence.
Instead of meeting Roscoe with the cordial
greeting he anticipated, he received him coldly, and
pettishly, and proceeded immediately to talk of some
business concerns, that required Roscoe's immediate
attention, as Mr. Clarence was to leave town in
the twelve o'clock boat.
Roscoe was hurt and disappointed by Mr. Clarence'
reception. He had cherished a filial affection for him;
and shocked by his apparent indifference, he forgot
to account for his not having called the day before.
He thought Mr. Clarence betrayed an undue interest
about his pecuniary concerns—`this detestable
money!' he said to himself, `it spoils every body!'
He left Mr. Clarence to execute his business, and
engaged to meet him again at the boat. He encountered
some unexpected delays, and just got to
the wharf in time to exchange one word with Mr.
Clarence, as the boat, like a hound springing from
his leash, darted away.
`Adieu,' thought Mr. Clarence, as he returned Roscoe's
farewell bow, `to my long cherished hopes.
What folly ever to stake our happiness on that which
depends on the mind of another. Well, certainly
the Roscoes were the last persons, whose coldness
and negligence, I should have expected.'
-- 050 --
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The circumstances here detailed, may seem very
trifling; but has not many a friendship been wrecked
by mistakes and misconceptions as trifling; and
should not those who know the value of this treasure,
carefully guard it, and maintain it, on an elevation
which these earthly vapors cannot reach.
-- 051 --
CHAPTER III.
“I know not whether the vicious or the ignorant man be most
cursed by the possession of riches.”
Anon.
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
“Good morning, my dear girls,” said Mrs. Layton,
entering Miss Clarence' apartment, “you see,
Gertrude, I do not consider you in the light of a
stranger. I never go down to breakfast. There
is no couleur de rose in the morning tints of a domestic
horizon. I hope mio caro sposo is civil to you.
“No one could be kinder.”
“Oh, he is the pink of courtesy—to strangers—
Pshaw! I forgot Emilie was in the room. You really
look like the pattern-girls of a boarding-school;
do you mean to immure yourselves all day with your
books?”
“I assure you I have no such juvenile intentions,”
replied Gertrude, “I have business out this morning.”
“Business! shopping of course?—a young lady
can have no other business; commissions for the barbarians
of Clarenceville? or a bargain for Harriet
Upton?”
“No, no, Mrs. Upton would not trust me.”
“Oh, then for yourself, of course?”
“No, Mrs. Layton, shopping is not my errand.”
“I am glad of it. There is nothing so rustic
and countrified, as the empressement, with which
country ladies rush forth to new hat, new shoe, and
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new dress themselves. You would lose your beautiful
individuality, if you were to identify yourself
with these people, in any particular—and besides,
I had rather direct your sacrifices to the graces.”
“My dear Mrs. Layton! did not you commend
my taste, in my new hat and pelisse?”
“Certainly I did. There is genius in dress, as
in every thing else; and though not a particle of
science, you have some inspiration on the subject.
Your dress harmonizes with a certain air of refinement
and elegance, that seems to be native to you.
You do not, however, comprehend all the power of
dress—I do—I have studied it as a science, and to
a woman, `it is fairly worth the seven.' But your
business, Gertrude, what is it?”
“I am afraid you will think it quite as rustic, as
shopping for country acquaintance. I am going to
look up some of the friends of my childhood; our
former humble neighbors of Barclay-street.”
“Lord! have not you forgotten them?”
“My father has left me a list to assist my recollections.”
“Eh bien! These sweet charities of life should
not be neglected. But, dear Gertrude, you must
not expect to find these people where you left them
seven years ago; half the inhabitants of our city,
move every May-day.”
“I foresaw that embarrassment, and sent Nancy
to purchase me a Directory.”
Mrs. Layton laughed. “There is certainly
something novel in this enterprise of yours, Gertrude.
A young lady of fashion and fortune setting
off with a Directory, to seek out acquaintance
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
of seven years since—and when time has so gently
dropped the curtain of oblivion over them. But it
is very amiable. You go first to the Roscoes, I
presume?”
“No, I do not go there at all.”
“You are right. They have behaved shabbily.
Where, then, do you go?” Gertrude gave Mrs.
Layton her list. Mrs. Layton smiled as she returned
it, “Go, my dearest, and get over it as soon
as possible—and be careful and not commit yourself.
These are the sort of people who will invite
you to `run in at any time'—`to be sociable'—`to
come and pass an evening'—they `are never engaged.
' If they name any specific time, say you
are engaged, and leave the rest to Heaven and me.”
Thus instructed, Gertrude left Mrs. Layton, and
was in the parlor, awaiting the carriage, when a
short, snug looking little gentleman, with an erect
attitude, and that lofty bearing of the head by
which short men endeavour to indemnify themselves
for the stinted kindness of nature, entered the apartment.
The stranger had a round sleek face, shiny
hair, prominent, bright blue, and rather handsome
though inexpressive eyes, and a mouth filled and
crowded with short, regular, and white teeth. He
smiled—and never did smile more truly indicate
imperturbable good-temper, and perpetual good-humor—
he smiled as he announced himself as `Mr.
D. Flint,' and apologized for the early hour at which
he had called. He `had been disappointed so often
in his efforts to see Miss Clarence, that he was determined
to make sure of the pleasure now.' A
servant announced the carriage. Mr. Flint handed
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
Miss Clarence into it, and when there, and before
Gertrude could frame a polite negative to his request
that he might have the honor of attending her, he
seated himself beside her, and asked where he should
order the coachman to drive. “To Fountain's,”
she replied, resolving she would drop her companion
there. As if knowing he had short space, Mr.
Flint improved it to the utmost. He described all
the fashionable amusements—all the stars of the
ascendant, and all as his familiars—promised to introduce
this and that gentleman to her, persons of
whom she had often heard, though never of Mr.
D. Flint—discussed the last play—volunteered to
send her the last new novel—offered to go to this
place with her, and that place for her, and, in short,
before they reached Fountain's, he had fairly woven
himself into the woof and warp of her futurlty. As
the carriage turned towards the shop-door, it was
intercepted by another vehicle, and obliged to pause
for a moment. At that critical moment, Gertrude's
eye fell on Roscoe. He walked past, all unconscious
that the individual whom of all others in the
world, he most desired to meet, was within his field
of vision. “Did you know the gentleman you were
looking at?” asked Mr. Flint. Miss Clarence
blushed as if she were betraying a secret, and replied,
`she was not sure she knew to what gentleman
he alluded.'
“Oh, then I was wrong. I thought you bowed
to Mr. Roscoe—a particular friend of mine.” Miss
Clarence was more than half vexed at this interpretation
of her eager glance, and as Mr. Flint handed her
from the carriage, she bade him a hasty and most
-- 055 --
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decided `good morning.' Mr. D. Flint, not at all
discomfited at his abrupt dissmission, felt much like
one of the enterprising race of squatters, who having
planted himself on the territory of some great proprietor,
makes his improvements with the happy
confidence that possession will gradually mature
into right.
Miss Clarence directed the coachman to drive to
Mr. Stephen Brown's, 3**, Broadway. `My
friends have risen in the world,' thought she, as the
carriage stopped against a very elegant four-story
house.
Stephen Brown had begun life in the humble
calling of a journeyman tailor. His own industry
aided by a thrifty help-meet rapidly advanced his
fortunes. He abjured the goose, (even a goose
should have taught him better,) and followed his
ascending star to a retail-shop in Chatham-street.
A profitable little concern it proved, and Brown
was translated to the higher commercial sphere of
Maiden-lane. Here he acquired property rapidly—
the appetite, as usual, grew by what it fed on.
From buying goods, Brown proceeded to buying
lots. He was one of the few fortunate speculators,
and the prudent age of fifty found him living in his
own luxuriously furnished house in Broadway, with
an income of $20,000.
Miss Clarence had known these people when, at
a humble stage in their progress, they lived near
her father. They had but one child—a good-natured,
lawless urchin, whom she remembered as her
brother Frank's favorite comrade in his boldest
sports. The Browns sedulously cultivated this
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
intimacy. They were ambitious to bring up `little
Stevy,' as they fondly called him, to be a gentleman,
and they perceived that Frank Carroll had certain
instincts of that race which were not native to their
son. They sent `Stevy' to the same schools with
Frank, and won Frank's heart by those little personal
favors and indulgencies agreeable to men and boys.
Miss Clarence had a very distinct recollection of the
gifts and the rides Frank received from the Browns.
She had a kindly remembrance of `little Stevy' too.
She cherished every association with her brother,
and it was the impulse of sisterly tenderness that
now prompted her to seek out the Browns.
Mrs. Brown was at home, and Miss Clarence
was ushered into an immense parlor, overloaded
with costly, ill-assorted, and cumbrous furniture,
where the very walls, all shining and staring with
gilt frames, and fresh glaring pictures, seemed to
say, `we can afford to pay for it.' A chandelier of
sufficient magnitude to light a theatre, hung in
the apartment. An immense mantel-glass, half
frame, reflected the gaudy and crowded decorations
of the mantel-piece. Sofas, side-boards, (there were
two of them, respectable pieces of architecture,)
piano, book-cases, the furniture of drawing-room,
dining-room, and library, arranged side by side,
indicated that the proprietors of the mansion had
received their ideas from the ware-house, and had
made no progress beyond cost and possession. Our
heroine was making her own inferences in regard
to their character, from the physiognomy of the
apartment, when the servant returned with the message
that Mrs. Brown said, `If the lady wa'n't no
-- 057 --
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company, she might walk down in the basement.'
Miss Clarence went, and was introduced to an apartment
and a scene, which we shall exactly describe.
The room was furnished with the well preserved
luxuries of the Browns' best parlor in Chatham-street—
the only luxuries they ever had enjoyed.
There were the gaudily painted Windsor chairs—
the little, round, shining, mahogany candle-stand—
the motherly rocking-chair, with its patch-work
cushion—the tall brass andirous—the chimney
ornaments, wax fruit, plated candlesticks, and
China figures—and edifying scripture prints, in
neat black frames, adorning the walls.
Stephen Brown, the proprietor of this magnificent
mansion, and of blocks of unmortgaged, unencumbered
houses, was seated on a table, cross-legged,
his shears beside him, and his goose at the fire, putting
new cuffs on an old coat—his help-meet the
while assorting shreds and patches for a rag carpet!
What signified it that the one could have purchased
the wardrobe of a prince, and the floors of the other
were overlaid with the richest Brussels? This
scene, and these occupations awakened a train of
agreeable associations, touched the chords that once
vibrated to the highest happiness of which they were
susceptible—the consciousness of successful diligence.
Neither of the honest pair recognized, in
the elegant young lady who entered, the little girl
they had formerly known. Mrs. Brown untied her
apron and huddled it, with her work, into a covered
basket, pushed up the bows of her cap, smoothed
down her shawl, and threw a reproving but unavailing
glance at her husband, who, after peering
-- 058 --
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over his spectacles at the stranger, pursued his
work.
“You do not remember Gertrude Clarence”—
said our heroine, kindly offering her hand to Mrs.
Brown, “you have not forgotten the Carrolls of
Barclay-street?” The name with which Mrs.
Brown was most familiar, revived her memory—she
welcomed Gertrude heartily; and Brown suspended
his stitches to say he was glad to see her, and to inquire
after her father. “I should not have thought,”
said the old woman, apologetically, “of sending for
you down to the basement, if I had surmised who it
was, but I thought it was one of them society ladies,
what brings round the subscription papers. It is a
wonder I did not know you. You have got that
same good look, though you are taller and handsomer;
but, la! we all alter, some go on from
spring to summer, and some from summer to winter,”
she shook her head, and sighed.
“But I do not perceive any change in you, Mrs.
Brown, you are looking just as you did when you
gave my dear brother that pretty little terrier-dog.”
“Lord bless us! how well I remember it! them
were happy days. It was the time he saved Stevy's
life, as it were, when they were skating together.”
“Better lost than saved,” muttered Brown, in so
low a voice, that Gertrude did not distinctly hear
him. She inferred, however, that something had
befallen `the only child.' “Your son is living, I
trust?” she said.
“Yes—a living trouble,” replied the old man,
harshly. The mother sighed, and Gertrude essayed
to turn the conversation into a more agreeable
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
channel. “You have a very fine house here, Mrs.
Brown,” she said.
“Our neighbours have not got no better, I guess—
you took notice of the parlors, Miss Clarence—
you see we have not spared nothing—but, mercy's
sake!” she added, lowering her voice, “what good
does it do us, so long as Stevy is as he is?”
Our heroine ventured to explore the maternal sorrow
a little farther, and ascertained that Stephen had
forfeited his father's favor by his idle and expensive
life, and was just now exiled from his home, and
under his father's ban. After listening to Mrs.
Brown's details, Gertrude, anxious to pour oil into
the mother's wounds, replied in her kindest voice,
“Oh, Mrs. Brown, most young men, with Stephen's
expectations, are wild and idle—prodigal
sons for a little while; but they come home to their
father's house at last—and no doubt poor Stephen
will.”
“Bless you! that's so considerate. I tell him
so,” and she glanced her eye towards her husband,
and taking advantage of his being slightly
deaf, and her back towards him, she proceeded to
pour her griefs into Gertrude's ear. “It's having
a rich father that's ruined poor Steve—never was a
better heart—never—but the poor boy has fallen
into bad company, and thinking he must get the old
man's money at last, he's gone all lengths. If it
had not been for lawyer Roscoe—God Almighty
bless him! if it had not been for him, Stevy would
have gone to the penitentiary; not that he was
guilty to that degree, but he was snarled in with
them that was. Mr. Gerald Roscoe saw right
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
through it, and he took it up, and argufyed it in
court—and la! who could help believing him; and
he cleared him, he did. And then he came here
himself to tell us of it with such a beautiful smile—
oh, a kingdom could not buy that smile! but him
never so much as thanked Mr. Roscoe, and only
just said, `you may take your labor for your pains—
not a shilling of my money shall go for the fellow,
even if it were to save him from a halter.' Do
you think Mr. Roscoe took offence? not a bit—he
never minded the old man's words any more than
he would his stitches; but when him was through
speaking, he said, “You mistake me, friend Brown,
I neither expected nor desire your money. I undertook
your son's cause on account of his having been
honored with the friendship of a little favorite of
mine, Frank Carroll.”
“My brother!” exclaimed Gertrude, “did he
say that?”
“To be sure he did, and that after looking into
the business, and finding poor Steve was innocent,
he had for his own sake, done all in his power for
him. And then he spoke so pretty for the poor boy,
and begged us to take him home once more, and
make his father's house the pleasant place to him,
and let him have his friends here like other gentlemen,
and get him married to some pretty, nice, discreet
girl, and so on; and then he said, our money
would be worth something to us. But, la! I can't
give you no idea of it—I never heard any body talk
so—my heart melted and was not like within me—
dear! a man's heart is harder—him never shed a
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
tear nor spoke a word—nor he has never mentioned
Stevy since, till just what he said to you.”
“He has not forgotten him, though,” replied
Gertrude, in the same discreetly low voice which
the mother used; “do you keep up a secret intercourse
with your son?” Mrs. Brown eagerly bowed
an assent. “Then use all your influence to persuade
him to persevere in good conduct, and he will
certainly win his way back to his father's heart and
house.” Gertrude rose to take leave. In answer
to Mrs. Brown's inquiry of `where she put up?'
she mentioned `Mrs. Layton's'. The name struck
Brown—he dropped his shears, “Layton—Jasper
Layton,” he demanded, “in — street?”
“Yes.”
“Then, Miss, I advise you to have all your eyes
about you—you'll want 'em. That man is on the
high road to ruin—in straits for money, and he
won't scruple borrowing from a lady—he stopped
here in his gig and tandem yesterday—as if I'd lend
a penny to a blade that drives a tandem; and then
he came turning and twisting to his business. `A
very superb house you have here, Mr. Brown, an
elegant room this—rich furniture—you must be a
happy man, Mr. Brown.' “Happy! happy!” repeated
Brown, as if the words brought out all the
discords of his nature, “happy I've never been
since I've earned more than I've spent; to be sure,
sometimes when I sit down in this room with just
my old furniture about me, with the old shears and
goose, and put in a new patch, or set a new cuff, it
does feel good—it brings back old times, when I sat
over my needle, cracking my jokes from morning
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
till night; and my old woman, not groaning and
sighing as she does now-a-days, but singing like
a lark over her wash-tub, with one foot on”—
Brown's words seemed to choke him, and a child-like
flood of tears gushed from his eyes—“on Stevy's
cradle.”
Gertrude, obeying the impulse of that sweet and
generous nature, that made her estimate the affections
of every human creature, however sordid and
mean, as too precious to be contemned, advanced
to the table on which Brown was still seated,
and resting her hands on it, she looked at him with
an animated expression of appeal and intercession,
that seemed to confound and overpower his senses;
for he covered his face with his hands; “Oh, bring
your son home again, Mr. Brown—try him once
more—forgive the past.”
“There's too much to be forgiven,” interrupted
Brown.
“But, my good friend, those that are forgiven
much, you know, love much. Stephen will feel
your kindness—he always had a good heart—a very
good, kind heart.”
“Did he ask you to speak to me?” said Brown,
letting fall his hands, and looking piercingly at
Gertrude.
“No.”
“Did the old woman?”
Gertrude could hardly forbear a smile at Brown's
suspicion of sinister influence. “No, indeed,” she
said, “it was yourself Mr. Brown, that induced me
to speak for your son—I perceived your heart was
turning towards him.”
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“That's true! that's true!” exclaimed Brown,
leaping from the table, “my feelings have been
working like barm, ever since Mr. Roscoe spoke to
me;—if I thought—if I thought he would not
go astray again—”
“Oh, try him—how often we all go astray, and
yet does that prevent our expecting the forgiveness
of our Father in heaven, when at each offence we
ask it?”
“That's true again—and I've thought to myself,
that I did not know how the Lord could forgive
me, who am but his creature, and I be so hard
to my own flesh and blood.”
Gertrude saw the point was gained. “I shall
come again, my friends,” she said, “to see you—
and to see Stephen, my dear brother's old friend;
and I am sure that I shall find it feels good to you
all again.” The old woman who had been over-powered
with emotions of surprise, and joy, and gratitude,
now felt them all merged in admiration of Gertrude,
which she expressed in a mode peculiarly feminine.
“Oh Miss Clarence! you and Mr. Gerald
Roscoe, have been such angels to us! you are just
alike—you need not shake your head—I thought of
it the moment you began to speak about Stevy—I
am sure, if ever there was a match made in heaven—”
“My good friend! Mr. Roscoe and I are strangers
to each other.”
“La! that's nothing. I can make you acquainted;
come here and drink tea with me to-morrow evening,
I will invite him, and then if—”
“If Stephen is here,” said Brown, finishing her
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halting sentence, “there are no ifs in the case—
Stephen shall be here.”
Dame Brown's auspices, were not precisely those
under which Miss Clarence preferred to be introduced
to Gerald Roscoe; and availing herself of Mrs.
Layton's hint, she pleaded an engagement, and terminated
a visit that seemed to the Browns, Heaven-directed.
Mingled with the pleasure of having been
the instrument of good to others, there was, in
Gertrude's bosom, a sweet, and cherished sentiment
of sympathy with Roscoe, arising from that best
and truest of all magnetism, correspondent virtue.
We say she cherished this feeling—she did so, in
spite of a very vigorous resolution to expel it; for
she knew that as Miss Clarence she was as yet, to him
an object of indifference, bordering on dislike; and
she dreaded lest any favorable impressions he might
have received at Trenton falls, should be effaced as
soon as he identified the stranger he met there, with
the heiress of Clarenceville. `I cannot but wish,'
she thought, `that he who has been so beloved of
my father, and who manifests such fond recollections
of Frank, should be my friend'—and revolving
this, and kindred thoughts in her mind, she proceeded
from the Browns' to Mrs. Stanley's. Here
she was again surprised to find a lady, whom she remembered
as a bustling notable woman, on the
shady side of fortune, emerged into its luxuries and
sunshine. Mrs. Stanley had been thrown out of her
natural orbit; and as an itinerant lecturer remarked
of the unlucky asteroides, she was of no `farther
use to society.' She would have made a most meritorious
shop-keeper, or a surpassing milliner. There
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are few persons fit to be trusted with the selection
of a mode of life, or who suspect how much they
owe to Providence, for assigning to them an inevitable
occupation. In our country, the idlers of fortune,
are to be compassionated. We have as yet no
provisions for such a class; they are not numerous
enough to form a class, and each individual is left
to his own resources.
A rich, motherless, uneducated, unintellectual
woman, is one of the most pitiable of these sufferers.
If she has no taste for the management of public
charities, and no nerves to keep her at home; if she
is healthy and active, she takes to morning visiting,
shopping, frequenting auctions, and to that most
vapid of all modes of human congregating—tea-parties.
Mrs. Stanley was issuing from her door, as Gertrude
entered it. She expressed a sincere pleasure
at seeing her, but her politeness soon became constrained,
and her relief was manifest, when Gertrude
rose to take leave, and inquired for a direction
to Mrs. Booth's. “My dear, how fortunate!”
exclaimed the good lady, “I am just going to an
auction in our neighborhood. Mrs. Booth will certainly
be there; she is at all the auctions; though,
poor soul, she lives at the world's end—how lucky
you mentioned her! You will have a fine chance,
if you wish to buy any thing, Miss Clarence—the
auction is out of season, and I expect the things will go
off a bargain.” Miss Clarence assured the lady that
she should make no purchases, but should be glad to
avail herself of so good an opportunity, to pay her
respects to an old friend;' and accordingly, she
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suffered herself to be conducted to the durance of an
auction. Mrs. Stanley was evidently on the qui
vive, as much interested and fluttered, as if she were
about to purchase the cargo of an India-man.
Our heroine had no very definite idea of an auction.
She knew it was an occasion on which commodities
were bought and sold; but she was quite
unprepared for such a scene as is exhibited at a sale of
fashionable furniture in a private house, and astounded
by the crowd, the pushing and jostling, the smiling
impertinence of some, and nonchalance and hardihood
of others, she dropped her veil and followed her
companion timidly. Mrs. Stanley, with the intrepidity
of the leader of a forlorn hope, pressed through the
crevices that were civilly made for her by the men
who occupied the entry, the flank of the battle-ground,
and entered one of the two spacious apartments,
filled with fine furniture, and a motley crowd
of all ranks, from the buyers of the costly articles
of the drawing-room, to the humble purchasers of
the meanest wares of the kitchen.
The sale had begun, and the ladies, (precedence
in our country is always, even on the levelling arena
of an auction-room, ceded to the females,) the ladies
were hovering—brooding better expresses the intentness
of their attention—brooding over a table
filled with light articles. There stood the hardy
pawnbroker mentally appraising every article, as
was evident from her keen glances and compressed
lips, according to the standard of her own price
current. Next were old housekeepers, familiar
spirits there, their unconcern and tranquil assurance
contrasting well with the eager, agitated expression
-- 067 --
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of the novices, who had come with the honest intention
to buy as well as bid, and whose eyes were
rivetted to the elected article with that earnest look
of appropriation that marks the unpractised purchaser---then
there were young ladies leaning on
their fathers' arms, their wishes curbed by the parental
presence, and old ladies made prudent by experience—
troops of young married women, possible
buyers; and troops of idlers, who loved better to see
this slight agitation of hope and fear, than to stagnate
at home.
There were but few persons of fashion present,
and they seemed to disdain the element in which
they moved, though they condescended to compromise
between their pride and their desire to obtain
possession of a costly article at an under price.
The pervading spirit of trade and speculation
spares neither age nor condition in our commercial
city.
Our heroine, unknown and unnoticed, was sufficiently
amused observing others, when Mrs. Stanley
touched her arm, “My dear Miss Clarence!
just hear what a bargain that dinner-set is going—
let me bid on it for you.”
“Excuse me, ma'm—my father has an abundance
of china.”
“Oh, but it is such a bargain!”
“I cannot abstract the bargain from the article,
and that I do not happen to want.”
“But, my dear, china never comes amiss, a store
is no sore—fifty dollars only is bid for it—if I but
had a place to put it in! I know,” she added, in a
confidential tone, “the whole history of that china.
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Mr. —, you know who I mean—the ambassador,
brought it out with him. He died soon after, and
it went off at his auction at twice the first cost. Mrs.
Pratt bought it; her husband—a peculiar man, Mr.
Pratt—sent it right off to Boyd's auction-room.
Hilson—Hilson, Knapp & Co., you know, bought
it there; he failed the next week, and I bid upon it
at his auction—Mrs. Hall overbid me; she died,
poor thing, without using it, and Mr. Hall has
determined to break up housekeeping—he is so
afflicted. Oh, gone, at sixty dollars! what a sacrifice!”
“Is that gentleman, Mr. Hall?” asked Gertrude,
glancing her eye at a person who stood opposite to
her, with a long weed depending from his hat, and
dangling on his shoulder, to which he seemed to
have committed the task of mourning, while he was
absorbed in magnifying the value of the article under
the hammer, by certain flourishing notes and
comments, “A capital time-piece, ma'am—given to
poor Mrs. Hall by her late father. He selected it
himself in Paris.”
“You may confide in the sofa, ma'am—it is
Phyfe's make—poor Mrs. Hall never bought any
furniture but Phyfe's.”
“Yes, madam, the carpets have been in wear
one year, but poor Mrs. Hall has been shut up in
her room, and seen no company in that time.”
Gertrude, who well knew that the prefix of `poor'
is, in common parlance, equivalent to deceased, was
smiling at the `afflicted' husband's tender allusions
to his departed consort, when Mrs. Stanley again
touched her arm. “Do you know the gentleman
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in the next room, who is leaning against the corner
of the mantel-piece? there, he is looking at you.”
“Yes—no—yes,” answered Gertrude, betraying
in her contradictory replies, as well as in the instant
flushing of her cheek, the emotions excited by thus
accidentally encountering Gerald Roscoe's eye. He
instantly bowed, and was taking off his hat, when
his elbow hit a lamp on the corner of the mantel-piece.
“Goodness me! he has broken that lamp!”
exclaimed Mrs. Stanley—“no, no, he has caught
it—that was handsomely done! who is he?” Gertrude
made no reply. “How strange you don't
remember his name, Miss Clarence, he is a very
genteel looking man—twenty dollars only for that
castor—my! what a bargain.”
Gertrude, conscious of her burning cheek, and
afraid her companion might observe it, was relieved
by the reverting of her attention to the sales. She
ventured one more timid and but half permitted
glance towards Roscoe. He had left the place
where he stood, and as Gertrude thought, might
possibly be making his way to her, `I can never
encounter a meeting and explanation in this odious
auction-room,' she thought, and, determining to
avoid it by a sudden retreat, she was making a hurried
apology and adieu to Mrs. Stanley, when that
lady recollecting herself, exclaimed, “My dear!
you forget you came here to see Mrs. Booth; there
the old lady sits right behind us—twenty-five—
twenty-five for that glass dish—no great catch—I'll
just mention your name, dear, to old Mrs. Booth—
poor soul, she is so deaf!”
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[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
“Oh, then,” said Gertrude, appalled by the idea
of hearing her name screamed where she most particularly
wished it should not be spoken at all, “Oh,
then, some other time—I entreat, Mrs. Stanley.”
But before the protest reached the lady's mind, she
had forced her way to Mrs. Booth, taken Gertrude's
arm, pronounced her name, and returned to the
table. Mrs. Booth, with the eagerness not to be at
fault, common to deaf persons, caught the name, and
uttered in a high key, “Mrs. Lawrence! how do
you do, my dear?” At this moment Roscoe had
penetrated through the crowd, and, unperceived by
Gertrude, stood a little behind her, but near enough
to hear whatever might pass between her and Mrs.
Booth. “I am right glad to see you, my dear!—
such a surprise! how are papa and mama, and husband?”
Gertrude could not explain that she had
no right to answer for more than one of the parties
named, and she merely bowed and smiled as complacently
as she could. “Any children yet, deaf?”
continued the kind-hearted querist. Gertrude most
definitively shook her head. “Never mind, dear—
uncertain comforts. You like living in the western
country, don't you? And Mr. Lawrence is a great
farmer, I hear. You are looking amazing well—
not a day older than when you were married. Did
your husband come to town with you, dear? La!
if here is not Mr. Gerald Roscoe---waiting as patient
as Job, to speak to me—Mrs. Lawrence, Mr.
Roscoe.”
Roscoe looked like a man suddenly awakened,
from whom a delightful dream is fleeting. He
however had the self-possession to bow and express
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[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
his pleasure at meeting Mrs. Lawrence. “Such a
surprise,” he said, significantly quoting Mrs. Booth's
words—and added, “I forced my way through the
crowd to pay my respects to you,” he depressed his
voice, “and to pray you to release me from the
promise I made you. My good deaf friend's introduction
has rendered my request unnecessary. I
am obliged to her for a favor that I confess I would
rather have received from Mrs. Lawrence herself.”
Gertrude deliberated for a moment whether she
should rectify his mistake, or whether she should
prolong, while accident befriended her, the mystery
in which accident had enveloped her. She did not
quite like to appear the humdrum personage—the
Mrs. Lawrence of several years standing, whom
she personated in the old lady's presentation; and
she therefore said, with a mischievous pleasure in
the perplexity she was inflicting, “Mrs. Booth has
mistaken me for a married friend of hers, and Mr.
Roscoe will perceive the propriety of not inquiring
into a mystery which is so evidently protected by
destiny.”
Roscoe bowed. “I submit,” he said, “and I
confess I prefer the continuance of the mystery to
the solution the old lady forced on me. I began to
think the atmosphere of an auction-room as fatal to
romance, as day-light to a ghost.”
“It is certainly a place of disenchantment,” said
Gertrude; and anxious to give the conversation a
new direction, she continued, “I came here with a
lady whom I had invested with the charms that memory
gives to those who are associated with our
earliest pleasures. She took me, for the first time,
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[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
with the companion of my childhood”—a shade
passed over Gertrude's expressive face at this allusion
to her brother, and suggested to Roscoe the
identity of this tenderly remembered companion
with the hero of the Trenton adventure. There
was an involuntury exchange of glances, and Miss
Clarence began again: “She took us to the theatre,
the circus, and the museum, and she was identified
in my imagination with the excitement of those
scenes. But the spell is completely broken here.
Nothing in life seems to interest her so much as an
auction bargain.”
“There is her kindred spirit,” said Roscoe,
pointing to the very lady in question, “I am told
she attends all these places as punctually as the
auctioneer himself—that her house is a perfect ware-house
of `uncommon bargains.' My poor old
friend, Mrs. Booth, is a more rational woman.
She frequents the auctions, as a certain philosopher
went to a hanging, `en amateur.' She is perfectly
deaf, and can take no part in individual hopes, success,
and disappointment, but she feels the groundswell,
and enjoys a sympathetic agitation from the
general movement on the surface of human affairs.”
“Human affairs!” exclaimed Gertrude, “we
can hardly wonder at those philosophers who have
treated our race as a subject for contempt and ridicule,
rather than of admiration and hope. The
most sanguine believer in perfectability is in danger
of forgetting the capacities of man, and giving up
his creed altogether when he looks upon the actual
interests and pursuits that occupy him. But I perceive,”
she continued, misinterpreting Roscoe's
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
smile, “that I am making myself very ridiculous—
a prosing, reflecting recluse is quite out of place in
this assembly. What picture is that the auctioneer
is puffing at such a rate?”
Roscoe could not answer the question, the crowd
prevented his seeing it. The man of the hammer
proceeded with professional eloquence and pathos,
“Five dollars—five dollars only is offered—this is
too bad, ladies—a first rate picture in my humble
opinion.”
“Who is the painter?” inquired a professed connoisseur.
“The painter, sir?—I really don't know
precisely—doubtless some great young artist.”
“Doughty, perhaps,” suggested a kind friend,
while a humble disciple of the fine arts pronounced
`it beyond all dispute a production of Cole's. It
had his clear outline—his rich coloring.'
“A landscape by Cole,” cried the auctioneer,
nodding gratefully to the sponsor, “a landscape by
Cole—a very celebrated painter, Mr. Cole—six
dollars—six dollars only offered for a picture by
Cole.”
“It is not very large,” said a cheapening voice.
“If it were in a handsome frame,” said our friend,
Mrs. Stanley, “I would buy it myself. Six dollars
is a bargain for one of Cole's landscapes.”
“If one could only tell the design,” cried a
caviller.
“The design,” replied the ready auctioneer,
“why it's evident the design is something of the
water-fall kind, and that fine figure of the lady
kneeling, is put in for the beauty of it.”
“Mama,” whispered a young lady who had
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[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
made the grand summer tour, “it looks just like
those sweet Trenton falls---do bid for it.”
“Seven dollars!” called out the compliant mama.
“Seven dollars---thank you, madam---going at
seven dollars—bless me, ladies! one of those eyes
is worth more than seven dollars—upon my word
they are speaking.”
At this moment Miss Clarence observed a woman
who stood near the auctioneer look curiously
alternately at her and at the picture, then whisper
something to the person next her, who after doing
the same thing, nodded affirmatively to her companion,
and said so emphatically that Gertrude
comprehended the motion of her lips, `striking
indeed!'
“Come ladies,” cried the auctioneer, “favor me
with one bid more—it is really too good to be sacrificed—
something out of Scott or Byron, `though
I can't give chapter and verse,' `or perhaps,' he added,
making a timely application of some classical
scraps, picked up in his professional career, `perhaps
it is Hero, or Sappho, they are always painted
near rocks and water.' Roscoe and Miss Clarence
both laughed at the ingenious conjecture of the
man of business; and Roscoe suggested that the
picture should be elevated, as it could not be seen
where he stood. The picture was instantly raised,
and presented to them both, a scene too deeply impressed
on their imagination, ever to be mistaken or
forgotten. It was indeed Trenton-falls; precisely as
they appeared, on the night of their adventure, with
Seton. The moon just risen above the eastern
cliffs, tipped the crests of the trees with its silvery
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[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
light, played on the torrent that foamed and wreathed
in its smiles, and concentrated its rays on the
figure of Gertrude, who appeared kneeling on the
rocks, just without the dark line of shadow, that
veiled the western shore.
There were no other figures in the picture, but
imagination instantly supplied them; and it seemed
to Roscoe, that he again stood on those rocks—
again saw Seton unclose his eyes, and Gertrude
raise hers to Heaven, with the fervent expression of
a beatified spirit.
“Oh Louis!” exclaimed Gertrude, involuntarily,
then laid her hand imploringly on Roscoe's arm,
then conscious every eye was turned towards her,
she shrunk from his side, and disappeared. Roscoe's
eye was rivetted to her retreating figure, but
instantly recovering his self-possession, he assumed
the air of an ordinary bidder, and called out to the
auctioneer, “fifty dollars.”
No competitor spoke. The picture was knocked
down to Roscoe. The amateurs, the pawn-brokers,
the bargain-buyers, the whole host of veteran
auction tenders, exchanged nods and smiles of
derision and pity, for there were kind-hearted creatures
among them, at the gullibility of the novice.
Even the auctioneer himself, could not suppress a
complacent smile, when he transferred the picture to
Roscoe, who deviating from the ordinary mode
of business, gave a check for the amount, and requested
immediate possession. Curiosity spread
through the rooms. The picture was at once invested
with a mysterious charm, and a factitious
value. Half a dozen voices in a breath, begged
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
another view. Roscoe, very politely regretted that
it was not in his power to oblige the ladies, said he
paid an extraordinary price for the exclusive right
to look at the picture—coolly rolled up the canvass
and withdrew; envied at last, as the possessor of a
secret, and a bargain.
-- 077 --
CHAPTER V.
“Who'er thou art, were mine the spell,
To call Fate's joys, or blunt his dart,
There should not be one hand or heart,
But served or wished thee well.”
Halleck.
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
Miss Clarence left the auction room, overpowered
by confused and painful feelings. The mortification
of seeing her own portrait, however disguised
by the romantic position in which she was placed,
exposed at a public sale, and bid upon by Roscoe,
at first blunted every other sensation. But considerations
of deeper, and more painful, as well as of
more generous interest, soon arose in her mind, and
entirely possessed it. Seton was living—was enduring
the extremity of misery, for nothing short of
that, could have induced him to part with a picture,
which proved with what tenacity, with what fond
partiality, he had retained her image. Estimating
her personal charms, more humbly than any
one else would have done, Gertrude esteemed the
portrait, a lover's apotheosis of his mistress.
She had penetrated the crowded passage, and
reached the outer door, when it occurred to her, that
she might possibly obtain some clue to Seton, by ascertaining
from the auctioneer how the picture came
into his hands; and she turned to retrace her way
to the parlor, but she was daunted by perceiving
that her undecided movements were observed by
those who had noticed her flushed and agitated
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[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
countenance, as she had hurried through the entry;
and naturally interpreting others by her own consciousness,
she believed the resemblance of the picture
had been generally detected; and she felt herself
at the mercy of whatever conjectures and inferences
the vulgar and curious might make. More
than ever embarrassed, she turned again towards
the door, got into the carriage, and obeying a sudden
impulse, ordered the coachman to drive to No.—
Walker-street—Mrs. Roscoe's address. At first
occupied with the single desire to obtain Roscoe's
co-operation in finding Seton, she determined to
dissipate the little mystery in which she was involved.
`But why was this necessary to effect her purpose?
' `at least,' she thought, listening to those
long cherished feelings that were resuming their
force, `at least, why not retain my innocent incognita,
till there is some object to be effected by resigning
it. It certainly would not stimulate Gerald Roscoe's
zeal, to know he was serving Miss Clarence.
How much Gertrude's desire to see Roscoe's mother—
the woman of all her sex, she most desired
to know, influenced her in selecting the mode of
searching out Seton, we leave to those to determine,
who are skillful in unravelling the intricate web
of human motives. Certain it is, that when Mrs.
Roscoe's door was opened to her, and she was told
that lady was at home, she would have exchanged her
location for any other on the habitable globe. She
was however, somewhat reassured by finding the
parlor vacant. The landlady who admitted her,
went to summon Mrs. Roscoe, and Gertrude was
left to her own meditations. `This then, she thought,
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
`is the abode of the Roscoes—what a change, from
the sumptuous style in which they once lived! and
yet it does not differ much from the picture my imagination
has drawn, for here are the indications of
taste, and refinement, and intellectual occupation.
Her eye ran rapidly over the apartment. Nothing
could be more simple than the furniture, but there
was that grace and propriety in its arrangement,
that marks the habits and taste of a lady. A piano,
a guitar, and a flute, with music books, a few volumes
of the best French and Italian authors, some
choice English books, the best foreign and domestic
reviews, a port-folio of drawings, a freshly painted
bunch of flowers, copied from some natural ones
still blooming in a tumbler, indicated the luxuries
in which the Roscoes still indulged.
While Gertrude was eagerly gathering a little
history from these particulars, the mistress of
the house returned. She evidently thought some
apology necessary for the delay of Mrs. Roscoe's
appearance, and while she mended the fire, “I am
sure,” she said, “Mrs. Roscoe will be down directly;
it is quite contrary to her habits to keep
any one waiting. She has broken my Emma of
ever fixing after company comes. She says we
have no right to sacrifice others' time to our vanity,
and Emma looks upon every thing she says just
like the proverbs.”
Gertrude wondered that a lady whose punctuality
was so exact, should be so dilatory on this occasion.
Her impatience arose from the fear that
Roscoe might return before she should get away.
“Perhaps,” she said, rising with the intention of
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
going, “perhaps Mrs. Roscoe is particularly engaged.”
“Oh no, Miss, nothing that will keep her more
than a minute. Mr. Gerald came in just the minute
before you did, with some great news, I suppose,
for he was all out of breath, and he's telling it to
his mother. It's nothing disagreeable,” she continued,
observing Gertrude's countenance change,
“I never saw two persons look happier. I should
think Mr. Gerald had drawn a prize in the lottery.”
“I will not disturb them, then,” said Gertrude,
moving towards the door.
“You'll not disturb them in the least, ma'am—
there they are coming now.” Gertrude heard their
footsteps descending the stairs: to retreat without
being seen was impossible—to remain calmly where
she was seemed to Gertrude quite as much so.
They paused at the foot of the stairs, and were in
earnest conversation. Gertrude, unconscious what
she did, took up a book.
“My John's Spanish grammar,” said the landlady,
anxious to fill up the awkward chasm, and
having the liberal communicativeness natural to
persons of her order, who have rather a sympathetic
turn of mind, she proceeded, “Mrs. Roscoe is
giving my son lessons in Spanish. He is going
out supercargo to south America, and she is as
much engaged in it as if it was her own interest.”
“Does Mrs. Roscoe understand Spanish?” asked
Miss Clarence, hardly knowing what she said.
“La! yes, Miss, and every thing else I believe.
She has taught the world and all, to my Emma, so
she gets a genteel living as governess.”
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[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
“I thought Mrs. Roscoe was an invalid.”
“She is of the delicate kind, but she keeps off
the thoughts of it by being always busy doing good
to somebody, instead of pining and going to bed
as some ladies do. I never knew her give up but
once.”
“When was that?” asked Gertrude, who was
sustaining her part in the conversation with about
as much interest as a person does while sitting in a
dentist's chair, awaiting the coming of that dreaded
executioner.
“Why that, Miss,” replied the landlady, “was
when that dreadful business of Mr. Gerald Roscoe's
and the Laytons was going on.”
`What do you mean?' Gertrude would have inquired,
for her curiosity was now thoroughly awakened.
But again she heard approaching footsteps.
The loudest, firmest step was, however, evidently
retreating, and she breathed more freely—the door
was half opened, and she heard Roscoe, who was
leaving the house, turn back and say, “Oh, I forgot
to ask you if you went to see Miss Clarence
this morning?”
“Yes, I went; but there were half a dozen carriages
at the door, and I did not go in—and on
the whole I believe I shall not go at all.”
“You are right. It can be of no consequence
to her.” The outer door closed, and Mrs. Roscoe
entered. The blush of alarmed and conflicting
feelings was still on Gertrude's cheek. She was in
the presence of the woman who of all others she
most wished to please, and she was nearly deprived
of the faculties of speech and motion. Mrs.
-- 082 --
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Roscoe apologized for having kept her waiting. There
was a gentle courtesy and softness in her manners
that seemed rather to appeal for the indulgence of
others, than to indicate they needed it. Gertrude
was somewhat re-assured, made a bold effort, and
remarked that `it was unusually cold.' Mrs. Roscoe
thought on the contrary `it was the warmest
weather ever known at that season.'
Gertrude abandoned that ground, and observed
that our climate, was inconstant. Nobody could
controvert this position, and there was a full stop.
Mrs. Roscoe rung for more coal, begged Gertrude
to draw nearer to the fire, and exhausted all the little
resources of politeness. Fortunately Gertrude in
removing her chair, knocked down the Spanish
grammar, and now recovering in some degree the
possession of her mind, she made a graceful
allusion to what the landlady had said of Mrs.
Roscoe's occupations.
“Ah, poor Mrs. Smith! no Pharisee ever had a
more faithful trumpeter than she is to me.”
“The voice of the trumpeter could hardly be
mistaken for the genuine expression of gratitude.”
“But I am really the debtor to my good landlady;
those know not how much they bestow, who
give us objects of interest, and means of agreeable
occupation.” The ice was now broken, and never
did a little boat set free more gladly bound over the
waves, than Gertrude skimmed over the light topics
that followed, till she was checked by the very natural
thought, that there was no propriety in deferring
to announce her business. Mrs. Roscoe interpreted
the embarrassed pause in the conversation; she saw
-- 083 --
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that Gertrude's was the diffidence of excited sensibility,
not of gaucherie, and skilfully extending the
aid of a leading question, she said, “There is
perhaps a misunderstanding. Mrs. Smith is a
blunderer—you did not say you had business with
me?”
“Yes, indeed I did,” said Gertrude, recovering
herself, “but Mrs. Roscoe must blame herself if
the pleasure of seeing her has put every thing else
out of my head; I ought not to have forgotten that
I had no pretence for my intrusion but business. I
met Mr. Gerald Roscoe”—there may be those who
having felt similar emotions at pronouncing simply
a name, will pardon Gertrude for faltering at “Roscoe,”
for the deep mortifying crimson that overspread
her face, and for the tremulous tone in which she
blundered through the simplest sentence possible—
“I met Mr. Gerald Roscoe at an auction this morning”—
she would have proceeded to speak of the
picture, but the words and the blush were enough—
Mrs. Roscoe interrupted her, took her hand, and
said, her eyes beaming with animation, “I understand
all—I have the pleasure of seeing the lady of
Trenton Falls. My son has already told me of
his fortunate meeting with you this morning, and of
his”—
“His bidding on a picture for me,” said Gertrude,
eagerly putting this interpretation on a wish
she had implied by laying her hand on Roscoe's
arm.
“No,” replied Mrs. Roscoe, with a smile, “that
was not precisely Mr. Roscoe's understanding—he
flattered himself that the fortunate purchase was his
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
own—but the fates are against him; on coming
out of the auction room he met the painter of the
picture”—
“Good Heaven!” exclaimed Gertrude, her cheek
suddenly losing its heightened color, and becoming
as pale as marble, “did he see him?”
“Yes—and he claimed the picture with such fervent
feeling, that my son, reluctant as he was to
part with it, resigned it to him. He took it, intreated
not to be followed, and disappeared.”
“Then all clue to him is again lost!”
“Will you give my son authority to search for
him?”
“Certainly—he will oblige me infinitely.”
Gertrude rose to take leave; Mrs. Roscoe laid
her hand on Gertrude's arm, “My young friend,”
she said, “we must not part strangers—strangers
we are not; but I have as yet thought of you as a
vision with which my imagination only could be
familiar. I am delighted to have the assurance of
my senses of your actual substantial existence—you
must not leave me now. It is quite time for my son
to return; let him have the pleasure of receiving
your commission from your own lips.”
“Oh, no, I cannot, indeed,” Gertrude replied, in
a manner so flurried that it was evident Mrs. Roscoe
had suggested the strongest motive for her instant
departure. “Then,” said Mrs. Roscoe, detaining
the hand Gertrude had extended to her, “at
least give me your name; we should know a lady
who moves in daylight, and carries a card-case, by
a less romantic designation than `the lady of Trenton
Falls.”'
-- 085 --
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This rational request placed Gertrude's incognita
in a very ridiculous light, and feeling that it
did so, she opened her card-case; but recollecting
that the step she had taken, though quite proper
for a stranger, was awkward for Miss Clarence,
and recollecting too that she had been neglected,
shunned, and, as she believed, contemned by both
mother and son, she reverted to her first decision,
and closing the card-case, said, “Pardon me, Mrs.
Roscoe, my name, unhappily, would dispel the little
interest which it has been my good fortune to excite,
and for which, mortifying as the confession is,
I know I am indebted to the accident of a trifling
mystery. It will be enough for Mr. Roscoe to
know that his inquiries may relieve the most painful
solicitude of one whom he has twice materially
served.”
“My son wants nothing to stimulate his zeal,
though he may not be too modest to ask for your
name to reward it; but pardon me, I perceive the
subject is painful to you. My son has it already in
his power to communicate some circumstances in
relation to your friend, of which you are ignorant.
He knows that the young man passes by an assumed
name, and at present sedulously conceals his place
of abode; something more he may have to tell, if
you allow him the opportunity.”
“Certainly; I will send my servant here to-morrow
for any information he may be able to give me,
and I beg that you, Mrs. Roscoe, will express to
him my sense of his kindness.” She then departed,
leaving Mrs. Roscoe in a half pleasing, half
-- 086 --
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painful state of uncertainty, but with a positive unqualified
interest in Gertrude, and sympathy with
Gerald.
“I have measured and weighed every circumstance,”
she said, after having related the particulars
of Gertrude's visit to her son, “and I can hit
on no solution more rational than the first that occurred
to me. Your heroine, Gerald, has undoubtedly
a clandestine attachment to this poor youth---
she is evidently a woman of education, of thorough
good-breeding, of sentiment, and uncommon refinement;
this painter is some `young Edwin' of lowly
fortune, frowned upon by her parents or guardians,
and she is naturally anxious to maintain secrecy,
while she still perseveres in her interest in the young
man---poor girl, I shall pity her when she comes to
know the history of his sufferings.”
Roscoe shook his head. “For Heaven's sake, my
dear mother,” he said, “do hit upon some other
solution—this is purely feminine, and savours of old-fashioned
ballad sentimentality.”
“Really, Gerald, it does not become a youth, who
falls in love at first sight with a nameless, mysterious
fair one, to rebuke his mother's sentimentality—
what other solution do you prefer? Would you
be resigned to the truth that her name was a dishonoured
one? disgraced by either parent?”
“I would prefer any reason for her mystery, independent
of herself.”
“Any explanation that left her affections free, and
attainable, Gerald?”
“Pretty well probed, mother. Yes, I would.”
“Amen, my son; I have no fears that you will
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
suffer from a predilection which as yet is a mere
fancy; to tell the truth, I am half in love with the
sweet girl myself. Abandon yourself to destiny.
Gerald; if her affections are pledged, or if she is
not worthy of yours, you will find it out in time;
diseases have their day, and incurable love is not the
malady of ours.”
“Love! Heaven preserve us! mother, you do
not fancy I am seriously in love?”
Mrs. Roscoe laughed—Gerald laughed, and
blushed, and looked—we blush too, to apply the
degrading epithet to the fine face of our hero, but it
is the only one that accurately describes a certain
expression that `happeneth to all men'—Gerald
Roscoe looked sheepish, and thus, for the time, the
discussion ended.
Meanwhile Gertrude, whose perseverance in her
mystery, we by no means approve, nor would hold
forth as a possible precedent for any of our young
friends, was congratulating herself on her success,
little dreaming of the suspicions to which she had
made herself liable. The visit had been as interesting
to her as a voyage of discovery. Every
thing she had seen and heard at Mrs. Roscoe's had
tended to confirm her favorable impressions of that
lady. She contrasted her elevated and happy mode
of life, with Mrs. Layton's indolence, indulgence, and
sacrifices to fashion; with the ignorance and vulgar expense
of the Browns and the Stanleys; and she learned
more of true philosophy and political economy
from the morning's observation, than she would have
gathered from volumes of dull treatises—more of
-- 088 --
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
the just use of property, and the true art of happiness.
The following morning she sent a servant with a
note to Mr. Roscoe, containing a simple request,
that he would send her whatever information he had
obtained of her friend. The servant returned with
a note. Gertrude inquired of her messenger if any
questions had been put to him. “No; the gentleman
had given him the note without speaking one
word;” and Gertrude, ashamed that she had for a
moment suspected Roscoe's interest or curiosity
might overcome his delicacy, retired to her room,
locked her door, and closed her blinds, before she
read the note. Strange are the outward signs of hidden
feelins!
The note ran as follows: “I am mortified that I
“cannot relieve a `solicitude,' (worth the sufferings
“of its object to have excited,) by any satisfactory
“information of your friend. I have ascertained
“merely, that the picture, in the absence of its
“owner and painter, (for who but a witness of that
“scene could have made such a presentment of it?)
“was sent by his landlady to auction. He returned,
“and found it gone—and alarmed at his loss, and
“still more at the descration of the picture by an
“exposure to a public sale, he repaired to the auc
“tion. I met him, as my mother has already in
“formed you, and perceiving to what a degree his
“sensibility was excited, I taxed my wits and my
“magnanimity, and, without any absolute sacrifice
“of veracity, made it appear that the picture had
“not been seen by any eye but mine, and that I had
“assumed it as a trust for him. He took it, and
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
“thanked me, as if he had received something very
“like a gift of life; and then intreating that I would
“not inquire for him, and assuring me that I should
“hear from him at some future time, he left me. At
“your bidding, I have violated his wishes, and made
“a most thorough search for him. All I can ascer
“tain is, that he is constantly occupied with his art,
“and is solicitous to remain concealed. He has
“changed his lodgings, after having told his land
“lady that inquiry after him would be fruitless.
“My mother imprudently told you I had something
“to communicate of this person; but, unhappily, it
“is nothing that can enlighten you as to his present
“condition, or relieve any anxiety you may feel as
“to what may have been his past sufferings. He
“has suffered long and severely from a malady of
“the mind, which was finally relieved by judicious
“care and medical art. For many weeks past, I
“have reason to believe, his external condition has
“been tolerable. Whatever sorrows of the heart
“he may still endure, are, perhaps, quite as much
“to be envied as pitied.
“My mother bids me ask if there is not one drop
“of pity in your woman's heart for the pains and
“penalties of curiosity? For myself, I am at last
“resigned to the penance you have inflicted. I am
“grateful to fortune for past favors, and take them
“to be an earnest of her future smiles. The vision
“of a moonlight night, in the bewildering scenes of
“Trenton, might be the coinage of the o'er-wrought
“fancy; but daylight, a city, and an auction-room,
“are not visited by spirits, and a form that moves
“on our pavé and in our hackney-coaches, cannot
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
“escape the eye, always in quest of it—so says my
“awakened hope. I have made a covenant with
“my lips, and shall ask no questions, but humbly
“await the hour when you, or kind chance, shall
“reward my forbearance. I shall not wait long, if
“you are but half as much impressed as I am with
“my own greatness in this matter. If I can be of
“any farther use to you, I pray you to command
“the services of
“Your very humble servant,
“Gerald Roscoe.”
Gertrude's solicitude for Seton was rather augmented
than abated by this communication. It
was evident that Roscoe knew more particulars of
Seton's suffering than he imparted, and she was
left to conjecture, but not to exceed in her most
distressful imaginings, the real truth.
The main subject of Roscoe's letter did not so
utterly engross her but that she scanned every
word. `There is nothing in it,' thought she, after
having thoroughly weighed it—`nothing more
than bare curiosity—and why should I expect to
find any thing else? Poor Louis—how can my
thoughts wander from you!' Gertrude was yet to
learn that expectations arise unbidden and unauthorized—
that duty cannot control or guide our
subtle thoughts. Hers reverted to Roscoe. `Perhaps
I have done wrong—this assumption of mystery—
my gratuitous visit, are certainly contrary
to my father's maxim—that a young woman should
never depart from the established and salutary
rules of society—that she should live within the
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
barriers. But is not this fastidiousness? Life would
be dull enough if we must for ever walk in the trodden
path—never follow the inspiration of feeling.
Still, my going there, betrayed my feelings—what
feelings! How unlike Roscoe's letter is, to Louis'
distant, delicate, fearful devotion; but why should
there be any resemblance? What could that talking
woman mean by his affair with the Laytons.'
“Shall I take out your pink, or fawn colored
dress for this evening?” asked Gertrude's maid,
who entered, and interrupted and put to flight her
sweet meditations. The important decision between
the rival colours was soon made, and Gertrude
joined a brilliant musical party in the drawing-room.
-- 092 --
CHAPTER VI.
“These are not the romantic times,
So beautiful in Spencer's rhymes,
So dazzling to the dreaming boy;
Ours are the days of fact, not fable,
Of Knights, but not of the Round table.”
Halleck.
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
Miss Clarence had now been long enough in
town, to get fairly started in the career of fashionable
life. She had been visited by the haut ton of
the city; and was already besieged by half a score
of aspirants for her matrimonial favor. There
were among them genteel young men, who made
their approaches and their retreats, in the delicate
mode, prescribed by the received usages of society.
Such persons fill a respectable niche in life, bnt are
not destined to `adorn a tale;' we shall therefore,
omit them in our dramatis personœ
By far the most important personage among our
heroine's lovers, was the ci-devant friend of the Roscoes,
Stephen Morley, Esq. No longer the cringing,
sycophantic, all-calculating Mr. Morley, for
these qualities had achieved their end, and obtained
their reward. He had risen to be a dispenser, instead
of a seeker of political favors; he stood high
in office, and higher in hope—so elevated that many
believed that the most exalted post in our country,
was within his possible grasp—it certainly was in
the eye of his ambition.
Mr. Morley, it was true, was some twenty or
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
thirty years older than Miss Clarence, but he reasoned
(and it must be confessed sub modo) `that Miss Clacence,
though young, was not beautiful'—he had half
a dozen well-grown children; but `she was neither
gay nor girlish, and after all, what were these trifles
weighed against the name of Morley, with the cabalistic
prefix of Judge, Governor, Secretary, or
President?—Thane of Glamis—Cawdor—King!'
Next in importance, was Major Daisy. Let not
the reader mistake, the major was no champ de mars
hero, but a gentle carpet knight. It might almost
be said, that he was born to his title, for he received
it as commander-in-chief of a nursery regiment,
and had probably retained it on the principle of attraction
in opposites. It was true of the Major,
as of many nobler victims, that `Fortune smiled
deceitful on his birth;' he was lapped in luxury, but
when it was time for him to have walked alone, viz.
when he had advanced some thirty years on the journey
of life, the rich house of his father, Daisy & Co.,
did what most others, rich and poor, do in our city,
failed; and the major, not being of a temper to turn
the tide of fortune, played the philosopher, and took
the easy part of submitting to evils, he had not energy
to resist. The world used him kindly. It fared
with him, as with few who do not hold the golden
key; the passe-partout in a society of moneyed aristocracy—
he retained his place in the beau-monde.
For this he was indebted to old and confirmed associations.
But what made Major Daisy an Areopagite
in the female fashionable world, must be
incomprehensible to those who do not know how important
it is in that dominion of debateable land, of
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[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
uncertain boundaries, and of ever falling barriers,
that some infallible hand should hold a scale by
which to graduate the pretensions to gentility. Instead
of the tiresome investigation at the ascension
of a new family in the firmament of fashion, of
`who are they?' `whom do they visit?' or `who
visits them'—the simple appeal to the Major, `are
they genteel?' laid all doubt and discussion at rest.
Then the Major had acquired a great reputation,
(as some other tribunals do, simply by giving judgment,)
in the questions of fashion and belleism. If
the mothers relied on him in matters of more vital
importance, the daughters listened, as devotees to an
oracle, to his opinion, of `who was the best dressed
lady at the fancy-ball,' and the Major's decision that,
such a fair-one was `the decided belle,' was the fiat
of fate. He knew at a coup-d'œil whether a hat
were really Parisian, or of home manufacture—could
tell a real blond, or camel's hair, at a bird's-eye
view—was a connoisseur in pretty feet, and an exquisite
judge of perfumes. To conclude all, the
Major, like most poor gentlemen, dressed with elaborate
neatness and taste—and, (to the utter perplexity
of that large class of persons, who tax their
wits to solve the problem of their neighbor's expenditures,)
with very genteel expense.
Major Daisy had rather an undue portion of the
better part of valor in his composition. He had
been all his life afraid of committing himself in a connubial
pursuit. There was nothing but death which
he dreaded so much as a refusal; but of late, there
had come a small voice from his inmost soul, saying,
if ever he meant to marry, it was time to think of it.
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
By a singular coincidence, it happened that this oracle
gave out its intimations about the time Miss
Clarence became an inmate in the family of Mrs.
Layton, with whom the Major was on the footing of
an old and intimate friend, and cotemporary.
The rival whom the Major most feared, and with
least reason, was a young scion of the old and universal
family of Smiths. Mr. John Smith, jr. the only
son of a rich broker—a vulgar, half-bred youth, recently
moulded into a dandy; and as that implies the
negation of every thing manly, and worth describing,
we shall pass him over, only saying, that he
presumed to our heroine's hand, incited thereto,
by certain refined suggestions from his father, such
as, `John, my boy, there's a chance for you!—a
nice girl they say—her father is heavy, I know all
about that—like to like, birds of a feather—fortune
to fortune—that's the way to roll up the ball, my
boy—set about it, John.' And the exemplary son,
with infinite self-complacency, obeyed the paternal
mandate.
Mr. D. Flint, who has already been repeatedly
presented to our readers, must make of the
lovers a partie quarré. Flint was of the emigrating
race of New England, and from the heart of
it; and a fair specimen of a class not rare in that
enterprising land. He was a lawyer, but even the
arts of that profession, which is supposed to sharpen
all the wits, could not improve his natural faculty
of `getting along,' and pushing along. He
came to the city without acquaintance, friends, or
patronage of any sort; but by dint of indefatigable
industry, vigilant activity, and irrepressible
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
forwardness, he penetrated to the foremost ranks of business,
and obtained an uncontested circulation in the
fashionable circles. This latter was accomplished
much in the same way as the cat's celebrated ascent
of the well, `three steps up, and two steps down;'
but though the rebuffs he received, were innumerable,
he was never disheartened by them. If utterly
destitute of that tact which is the best guide in the
art of pleasing, he was entirely free from the sensitiveness
that is curiously compounded of sensibility,
pride, self-love, and selfishness. He never took offence—
the delicate intimations of the refined, the
coarse joke, the rough reproach, disdain, contempt,
neglect, all glanced from his armor proof of triple
steel—good nature, self-complacency, and insensibility.
He was perfectly free from affectation, save
in the single point of concealing his Christian name;
of this he had unwarily made a mystery, when he
first came to town; and his reluctance to disclose it
had been confirmed by some of his mischievous acquaintance,
who had appended to the initial D. every
ridiculous prefix in the language. He was not
only free in all other respects from affectation, but
he had not aimed at polish, or even quite freed himself
from a rusticity of dialect, that betrayed his
early associations. If told any thing that excited
his wonder—this was rare, for true to the character
of his all-knowing countrymen, he had
—“a natural talent for foreseeing
And knowing all things;”—
but if perchance, taken by surprise, he would exclaim
`do tell!' or `you don't!' instead of those expletives
of custom, `Mon Dieu!'—`God bless me!'—and
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
notwithstanding the proverbial vulgarity of these
provincialisms, he guessed, concluded, or calculated,
in every sentence.
We hope to be forgiven for calling this portrait
a national sketch: `Who may we take liberties with
if not with our relations?' and we must not be suspected
of disloyalty to our race, though the man is
not always painted triumphing over the lion—the
New Englandman superior to every other. Besides,
we sincerely like Mr. D. Flint, and the class
of character to which he belongs. If deficient in
the niceties of feeling, he abounded in active useful
kindness. If unpolished, he was honest; and if unrefined,
he afforded a sort of safety valve for the
over refinement and irascibility of others.
These were the satellites that revolved around
the envied heiress! and these were assembled about
her one evening when Mr. Flint, always the first to
move, proposed they should go to the Athenæum
lecture. Miss Clarence assented, glad of any opportunity
of escaping from the siege of her suitors.
Mr. Morley was quite too much a man of affairs to
waste an hour at a lecture of any kind, and he withdrew.
Mr. Smith “would go if Miss Clarence
wished, for,” he gently murmured, “I am like him
which divided the world into one part—that where
she is.”
“Oh, my poor friend, Rousseau!” exclaimed Mrs.
Layton, at this version of one of the most felicitous
passages of her favorite author, “it is too hard that
you should fall on evil tongues, as well as evil times.
But come, Pedrillo, the world is divided into one
hemisphere to you too, I believe, what say you to
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
killing an hour, or rather permitting it to die a natural
death at the Athenæum.”
Pedrillo replied, to Mrs. Layton's ear alone,
`that the Athenæum was a bore, and he preferred
remaining at home, provided Miss Emilie did the
honors of the house in her mother's absence.'
Emilie was appealed to, but on every occasion—
with and without reason—she shrunk from Pedrillo,
and she expressed an earnest wish to accompany her
friend to the Athenæum; whereupon Pedrillo
bowed, and declared he should be most happy to
attend her. Mr. Flint murmured at these preliminaries.
He was for making the most of every
thing. `The lecture was on astronomy—there
were to be fine transparencies exhibited, and the
ladies would lose their chance of good seats by this
delay.'
“Pshaw, Mr. Flint,” said Mrs. Layton, “are
you under the delusion of imagining we go to the
Athenæum to see, or to hear?”
“What do you go for, then?” honestly asked
Flint.
“To be seen, my good friend—to fulfil our destiny,
and be the observed of all observers. Blues,
pedants, and school-boys may go to stare, and listen;
but we of the privileged class have, thank
Heaven, a dispensation.”
“Privileged class! what a happy expression!”
exclaimed Mr. George Smith, eying himself obliquely
in the mantel-glass.
“Pardon me, madam, I do not agree with you,”
said Major Daisy. “The Athenæum lectures afford
a remarkably genteel way of getting
-- 099 --
[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
information, and are as little tiresome as astronomy, and
philosophy, and all that sort of thing, can be made.
You know — is of my opinion—he remarked in
last evening's paper that the tone of society had
improved since their institution.”
“They are certainly useful,” said Mr. Flint.
“Oh l'utile—t'utile—Je te deteste,” exclaimed
Mrs. Layton. “How do you like my hat, Daisy?”
The ladies were adjusting their cloaks and hats.
“Admirable, Madame!—from the Rue Italienne—
is it not?”
“You have the best eye in the city—yes—Miss
Thompson imported it for me. You see it is a
demi-saison—the flowers half hidden by the feathers—
the reign of summer yielding to winter.
And then observe how happily it is adapted to the
demi-saison of life—alas the while!”
“I declare it is a very pretty-looking hat,” said
Mr. Flint. “What was the price of it, Mrs. Layton?”
“Pardon me, Mr. Flint, that is the only particular
I never inquire about.” Mrs. Layton was
right; such vulgar queries are for those who mean
to pay, or at least not to postpone payment indefinitely.
The party was now equipped and proceeded to
their destination. “I told you so—we are too late,”
said Mr. Flint, on opening the door, and finding
the room full to overflowing.
“A room is never too full,” replied the gallant
major, “for certain persons to find a place.”
“A very good rule, Major, and another is, Miss
-- 100 --
[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
Clarence, to be quite unconscious that the seat you
happen to prefer is occupied—now follow me.”
Suiting the action to the word, Mrs. Layton pushed
her way to the upper end of the room, declining
gracefully, as she proceeded, numerous offers of
seats, till she obtained the conspicuous position at
which she aimed. Gertrude was amazed at what
would have startled a novice only, the ease with
which a lady of fashionable notoriety can doff the
prescriptive delicacy of her sex, and force her way
to a commanding station, with a boldness that
would better become a military chieftain. The
lecturer paused at the bustle occasioned by the entrance
of the brilliant party. Mrs. Layton always
commanded notice. Her daughter, a newly risen
star in the fashionable hemisphere, had not yet
sated curiosity, and our heroine was known—we
grieve so often to repeat the unprized distinction—
as `Miss Clarence---the great fortune.'
In our commercial city every thing is inspired or
infected by the bustling genius of the place. Even
scientific associations, and literary institutions, are
modified by the habits of business. The merchant,
who has a hundred argosies at sea, can give but brief
attention to any thing but the chances and losses of
trade; and thus it happens that at the Athenæum,
the most fashionable of our literary resorts, four
lectures only are allowed to the discussion of the
most useful arts—to the most abstruse science—to
the inexhaustible topic of metaphysics—to the fascinating
themes of German and English literature.
If poetry is the subject, the lecturer must discuss its
origin, its nature, its uses and abuses—he must sail
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down the stream of time from Hesiod to the last
stanza by Moore, or Halleck, or Bryant. He must
prove that if our soil has as yet produced few
flowers of poesy, we have a greater capacity to develope
than any other people, (for our patriotic
audiences are not quite satisfied without this sacrifice
to the local divinities,) and he must do all this in
four lectures of one hour each, `counted by the
stop-watch, my lord.' In this brief space the geologist
scales the Andes, dives to the primitive rocks,
and imparts his revelations of antediluvian worlds.
The astronomer comprises the brilliant discoveries
of his science within this Procrustes measure.
Doubtless there are fortunate and dexterous individuals
who in this match of knowledge against time
may, like persons running through the Hesperian
gardens, catch some of the golden fruit as it falls.
But miracles are past, and for the most part we
must say, `Alas, for this multitude, for they go
empty away!'
A limited time is not the only difficulty with
which the lecturer has to contend. He must possess
a rare art who commands the attention of a
popular assembly constituted of young ladies just
escaped from the thraldom of school—their beaux
just launched on the tide of fashion—married pairs,
seeking a refuge from conjugal ennui—a few complaisant
literati, who go `pour encourager les autres,'
and a very few honest devotees in every temple of
knowledge. But even in such an auditory `the
air, a chartered libertine is still, while — defines
and magnifies the art his genius illustrates; and
while — kindles up the dim speculations of
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metaphysics with the light of his genius, and imparts
to their abstractions the vivifying essence of
his wit.
The particular attraction of the evening we have
selected, was some fine transparencies. Gertrude
had taken an unambitious seat behind Mrs. Layton.
“I am afraid,” she said, “my rue Italienne is in
your way, my darling,—my feathers de trop, are
they not?—You cannot see any body?”
“I cannot see the lecturer, and as I must honestly
confess, I am smitten with the rustic desire to see
the transparencies, I will trouble Mr. Pedrillo to
conduct me to an unoccupied place just below us.”
“Rather an eccentric movement for a fashionable
young lady, but `chacun à son gout! go, we will not
lose sight of you.”
Pedrillo saw her ensconced in a position that promised
to be a favorable point of sight; but here too
a phalanx of plumes waved and nodded before her,
and the fair wearers were reconnoitering the company
through their eye-glasses, and interchanging
their remarks on new dresses and new faces. Pedrillo
left her, saying, he could not presume to divide
her attention with the lecturer, and resumed
his station at Emilie's side. The lights were soon
after all extinguished to give full effect to the transparencies,
and directly two gentlemen took an unoccupied
place before Gertrude. The one, she recognised
by his voice to be Flint, who had left his
party to speak, as he said, `to a member of Congress—
a particular friend,' and the other was Gerald
Roscoe. The gentlemen were as sincere as
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she had been in their wish to give their attention to
the lecturer, but it was impossible; the fairer part
of the audience had taken advantage of the entertainment
being chiefly addressed to the eye, and
were indulging in whispered tête-à-têtes. The gentlemen
followed their example, holding their hats
before their faces to secure their communications
from general circulation, and thus giving them more
distinctly to their back auditor. “Have you met
Miss Clarence yet?” asked Flint.
“No—never.”
“I will introduce you to her after the lecture; I
am quite intimate with her.”
“Thank you—I have already been offered that
honor once to-day by the mother of our client,
Stevy Brown; the poor dog is at home again, in
high favor with the old tailor; and his wife,
who is very much my friend, and overflowing with
gratitude to Miss C. for some part she had in the
reconciliation, predicts a match between us, and
actually sent for me to-day, to propose we should
help on our destiny by meeting at a sociable teadrinking
at her house!”
“Well—what did you do about it?”
“Heavens, Flint! I should think even your business
spirit would shrink from such an encounter.”
“I don't know that—it is not best to be too
romantic; but I am glad at any rate that you declined
the meeting. You are such a favorite with
the girls, Roscoe, that I had rather not have you for
a rival.”
“The danger of my rivalship, Flint, would
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depend on the eagerness of the competition, and that
on the value of the prize to be striven for.”
“Oh, certainly—and the prize in this case is
worth striving for. I should despise marrying for
fortune alone as much as any man, but I presume
fortune don't disqualify—I can tell you, Roscoe,
Miss Clarence is a very sensible young lady.”
“Heaven defend us from your very sensible young
ladies!”
“Oh, well, she is very fashionable, if you prefer
that, and very much admired.”
“So I am told by Morley, Daisy, & Co.—a
goodly company, truly—all, all honorable men.
The value of their admiration can be pretty accurately
calculated—what is the amount of the stock,
Flint—the consideration for which these gentlemen
will give their matrimonial bonds?”
“Now you are too severe, Roscoe. There are
several ladies in the city as much of an object as
Miss Clarence; but then, I must own, there is an
advantage in having an elegant sufficiency, secured
from all contingencies.”
“I am ignorant of the terms of the trade, Flint;
what do you mean by an elegant sufficiency?”
“A hundred thousand dollars. I know, on the
best authority, that the old man has secured her that,
so that if he marries again, and some folks think he
will, or if he lives for ever—dyspepsia never kills
any body, you know—still there is enough for any
reasonable man. I tell you again, Roscoe, Miss
Clarence would not be a bad bargain without her
money. Upon my honor, I would as soon sell my
soul as marry for money alone—but she comes up
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to my rule, viz. never to marry a woman with a
fortune that I would not marry if I had the fortune,
and she were without it—that's about fair, is
it not?”
Roscoe was struck with this naïve exposé of sordid
calculation, just notions, and honest feeling, and
he was on the point of wasting a little sentiment on
Flint, in a remonstrance against this admixture of the
pure and base, but he remembered in time that there
is nothing more quixotic than to attempt to change
the current of a man's mind by a single impulse,
and he contented himself with saying, “I am no
casuist in these matters; I conceived an early prejudice,
a sort of natural antipathy against a fortune—
that I believe is the technical term for a
prize-lady.”
“You don't say so—that's very odd.”
“It may be so, but as a natural antipathy is a
feeling of which we do not know the origin, and
which we never hope or try to overcome, you may
venture to introduce me to Miss C. without any fear
of competition.”
Flint had a profound respect for Roscoe's opinion,
and after a short interval of silence, he said, “Do
tell me why you so much object to marrying a fortune?”
Roscoe replied, in the words of an old ballad,
“Her oxen may die i' the house, Billie,
And her kye into the byre,
And I shall hae nothing to mysel,
But a fat fadge by the fyre.”
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Gertrude smiled, she could not help it, at the
ridiculous light in which Roscoe had placed her;
but a captive at the stake would have had no reason
to envy her, delicate as she was almost to fastidiousness,
while she heard her market value so coarsely
set forth by Flint, and her father, who was embalmed
in her heart in the sanctity of filial love, spoken
of as the `old man,' whose projects, health, and life
were of value only as enhancing, or diminishing her
chances of wealth---and this to Roscoe too. Gertrude
felt for the first time the full force of a sentiment
that she had almost unconsciously cherished.
If a woman would make discoveries in that intricate
region, her heart, let her analyze the solicitude she
feels about the light in which she is presented even
to the imagination of him whom she prefers. The
estimation of the most indifferent or despised becomes
of consequence, when it may color with one
shade the opinion of that individual. `Is it not
possible,' thought Gertrude, `to escape this introduction,—
I cannot—I will not become at once in
his eyes this detested `prize-lady'—what an odious
term! this object of the pursuit of `Morley, Daisy,
& Co.'—this `fat fadge' of his perspective;' and
dreading any thing less than the threatened presentation
and consequent éclaircissement, she determined
to make her way to Mrs. Layton, and on
some pretext retire from the lecture-room, before
she again encountered Flint. She had half-risen,
when she was arrested by some disorder in that part
of the room where she had left her party, and directly
the cause was explained by several voices exclaiming,
`there's a lady fainting!'—`open a
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`make room there!' The lecturer stopped.
A candle was lighted at his lamp, and Gertrude
saw Emilie supported, almost carried in Randolph
Marion's arms, and followed by Pedrillo and her
mother. Marion's face was pale and agitated.
Flint sprang forward with his usual alacrity to offer
assistance; Gertrude lost every other consideration
in her interest for her friend, and would have window'---,
but she heard Mrs. Layton say, “It is merely
the heat of the room---come with us, Mr. Flint---
Major Daisy stays for Miss Clarence---run forward,
Mr. Flint, and see if there is a carriage at the
door---if not, get one.” Never was there a more
useful man for an exigency than Flint. Roscoe
had stepped forward to assist the retiring party,
but after exchanging a word with Mrs. Layton,
he resumed his place. Miss Clarence was before
him, and the candle still near enough to reveal
her features. Their eyes encountered. She bowed,
but with the coldest reserve, for at that moment she
felt her identity with the `prize-lady' only. Roscoe's
surprise and pleasure at meeting her prevented
his observing her coldness. “Is it possible,” he
exclaimed, with the utmost animation, “that I have
been unconsciously near you; I shall never again
believe in those delicate spiritual intimations that
are supposed to be conveyed without the intervention
of the senses.” Gertrude secretly wished that
the senses too had suspended their ministry, that her
ear had been deaf to those sounds that seemed now
to paralyze the organs of speech.
Roscoe looked curiously round in quest of some
person, or persons, who should appear to be of Miss
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Clarence' party. She saw his curious survey, enjoyed
his perplexity, and kept her attention apparently
fixed on the lecturer. “It is a pity my friend,
Mr. —, does not speak loud enough to be heard,”
said Roscoe, “since he is so fortunate as to engross
your attention.”
“It aids one materially in hearing, to listen,” replied
Gertrude.
“A good hit,” said an elderly gentleman, who
sat next Miss Clarence; “a word, young man,”
he continued, drawing Roscoe towards him, “I advise
you not to interrupt that young woman any
longer; she comes here for some profitable purpose—
she is a teacher in the High-school, I surmise.”
`She certainly listens most dutifully', thought
Roscoe, `but this good gentleman's surmise is not
mine.' “If the lady is a teacher, sir,” he replied,
with the utmost good humor, “I am a learner, and
you must allow me to use my golden opportunity.
`The gods send opportunities---the wise man profits
by them,' you know”---he quoted the Latin saying
in its original. His admonisher was so propitiated
by the implied compliment to his learning, that,
though he did not understand a word of it, Roscoe
might have talked through the lecture without any
further reproof from him.
The lecture was evidently drawing to a close, and
Gertrude heartily wished that, like Cinderella, she
had some good fairy at hand to assist her departure;
and Roscoe secretly exulted that now at least she
could not disappear without affording him some clue
by which to ascertain her name---all that seemed to
him unknown. So satisfactory is that internal
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conviction that is wrought by the character and manners.
Roscoe availed himself of a pause, while the
lecturer was adjusting a transparency. “I shall
hope again to meet you here; pardon this uncourteous
you---our barbarous language has no more
gentle substitute for the name. Do not,” he added,
in a lowered and earnest tone, “do not leave it to
destiny any farther to weave the web of our acquaintance;
allow me to seek you elsewhere, or, at least,
to expect to meet you again here?”
“Have you forgotten,” asked Gertrude, referring
to an expression in Roscoe's note, “have you forgotten
your voluntary `covenant with your lips?”'
“Pardon me---that covenant only extended to
impertinent questions of others, and indirect inquiries.”
“But those were not the terms of the compact,
and you have given me new reasons this evening for
enforcing it.”
“Impossible! what can I have said or done to
deserve such a mark of your displeasure?”
“Not my displeasure---exactly,” she said---and
`not my displeasure at all,' spoke the sweet smile
that beamed from her lips; but now the candles
were re-lighted, and she perceived Major Daisy
eagerly making his way through the crowd to her.
She abruptly left Roscoe, and met Daisy. She had
dropped her veil to prevent all recognitions from
her acquaintance. “Do not speak to me,” she
said, as the major was beginning to describe the
anxiety with which he had looked for her, “there is
a person here I wish particularly to avoid---let me
pass out as if entirely unknown.” Daisy, not
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doubting she wished to cut some vulgar acquaintance,
implicitly obeyed her, admiring the facility with
which she was acquiring the arts of polite life. She
thus succeeded in completely eluding the vigilance
of Roscoe. His eye followed her till she was lost
in the crowd; but he saw no one join her, and he was
not without some uncomfortable reflections on the
singularity of a lady violating the common forms of
society. Yet there was so marked a propriety and
delicacy in Gertrude's deportment, that it seemed
ridiculous to doubt her. He racked his brain to
conjecture what she could have meant by alleging
that he had that very evening given `her new reason
for her mystery.' `She might,' he thought,
`have overheard my discussion with Flint; but I
said nothing dishonorable to her sex—or any individual
of the blessed community but poor Miss
Clarence. Heaven forgive me, for my antipathy to
that girl's name even—Well, I will home to my
mother, and see if female ingenuity can help me to
unravel this mystery.'
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CHAPTER VII.
“Laissez moi faire.—Il ne faut pas se laisser mener comme un
oison; et, pourvu que l'honneur n'y soit pas offense on se peut
libèrer un peu de la tyrannie d'un père.”
Moliere.
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On the night after the lecture at the Athenæum,
Miss Clarence had just laid her head on the pillow,
when she heard her door gently opened, and saw
Emilie enter. “Oh, Gertrude,” she said, “how
could you go to bed without coming to see me?”
“My dear Emilie! I was prevented by your
mother. She told me you were exhausted by your
indisposition at the lecture, and had fallen asleep,
and Justine had requested no one would disturb
you.”
“How can mama!” Emilie checked herself and
added, “I have not been asleep—I cannot sleep—
but I will not disturb you Gertrude. Only kiss
me once, and tell me you love me, and feel for me.”
She knelt beside Gertrude, and laid her face on her
friend's bosom. Nothing could be more exquisite
than her figure at this moment, as the moonlight
fell on it. Her flowing night-dress set off the symmetry
of her nymph-like form; her hair, parted
with a careless grace, lay on her brow in massy
waving folds; her cheeks were flushed with recent
agitation, and her eyes, the ministers of her soul,
revealed its sadness. Her attitude seemed to solicit
pity, and Gertrude, full of the quick-stirring
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sympathies of youth and ardent feeling, obeyed
their impulse. “Come into my bed, Emilie,” she
said, “and lie in my arms, and pour out your heart
to me as to second self. Every one of your feelings
shall be a sacred trust, and I will think and act
for you as I would for myself.”
Never did a child, with its little burden of untold
grief, spring more eagerly to its mother's bosom,
than Emilie to the arms of her friend. She felt
there as if she were at home, and at rest, and no
evil could approach her! She wept without fear,
and without measure. “I never was used,” she
said, “to shutting up my thoughts and feelings in
my own bosom, and it has seemed to me as if my
heart would burst. Mama has charged me so often
not to say any thing to you on a certain subject---
but I never promised her---do you think it was
wrong, to let you Gertrude, who are such a true
friend to us all, to let you know what was in my
mind?”
“You cannot help it, Emilie, for I already
guess and fear all that is not told. Have I not understood
your not writing to me?---your reserve
since I have been with you? Have I not observed
your drooping eye—your timid, shrinking look,
whenever Pedrillo appears?”
“Oh, I hate him!” interrupted Emilie—it was
the ungentlest word she ever spoke.
“Did I not see you to-night in Randolph Marion's
arms?”
“Did you see that, Gertrude?—then you know—
no, that you cannot know—”
“Randolph's agitated countenance, Emilie, and
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your emotions have left you little to disclose—he
still loves you?”
“I think—I believe—I hope he does. Is it not
strange, Gertrnde, that I can hope it, when his love
must be useless to me, and misery to himself?”
“No, Emilie, the hope of a requital is the first
and last demand of affection—the first and last
breath of its existence.”
“Then it was not a sin in me to feel such a gush
of joy when our eyes met, and I perceived in that
one brief glance that I was still beloved. Gertrude,
I forgot where I was—I thought of nothing
but that Randolph still loved me. Mr. Pedrillo
must have observed us—he whispered in my ear
`beware!' I felt as if a serpent had stung me.
Then the room whirled round, and I knew nothing
more till I was standing on the college steps, leaning
on Randolph's bosom, and supported by his
arms—he resigned me to mama—pressed my hand
to his lips—yes, before Pedrillo's eyes, and mama's—
and then he said `Emilie, forgive me!' and darted
away. He spoke but those three words, but did
they not say he had wronged me by that cruel
letter at Trenton? did not they indicate that he
still loves me?—but if he does”—
“Is it not possible, Emilie, to avoid this horrid
marriage?”
“No—no—that man is as relentless as the grave—
we are all in his power. My price is paid,
Gertrude—my mother has told me so.” The poor
girl averted her face as if she would have hidden
her shame at the insupportable thought of the infamous
traffic in which she was sacrificed.
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Gertrude started up. “Your price, Emilie!”
she exclaimed, “Is it money that is in question?—
can money redeem you from this dreadful fate?”
“It is not money alone,” replied Emilie, in
a tone that proved she had not caught a ray of hope
from the animated voice of her friend, “there is
some dreadful mystery, Gertrude, mama does not
understand it, but ruin—absolute, hopeless ruin,
awaits us all if this marriage is not accomplished.
Oh, I could have laid down my life—I could have
sold myself to slavery, but to marry a man I so detest—
and fear—and Randolph still loving me—but
you cannot help me, my noble, generous Gertrude—
there is no help for me.”
“I do not despair, Emilie,” replied Gertrude,
to whose strong and resolute mind no obstacle
seemed insuperable, when her friends' preservation
was the object to be obtained; “I do not despair—
there is a limit to parental rights—you do not owe
and you must not yield a passive and destructive
obedience to the authority of your parents. You
have a right to know what this ruin is which you
are to avert by self-immolation. We will try to the
utmost to close this mysterious gulf without burying
you within it. Your marriage has been once deferred
by the intervention of Heaven---try now what
a heaven-inspired resolution can do.”
“When I listen to you, Gertrude, it seems possible.”
“It is possible. Is Pedrillo urgent as to the
time?---Has your father named a day to you?”
“Not the day precisely; but I see there is no
escape---he told me this morning, it must not be
much longer delayed.”
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“At any rate,” said Gertrude, after a little consideration,
“there will be time enough for me to
receive a letter from my father. Rest assured,
Emilie, that whatever can be done to save you I
will do---now compose yourself and go to sleep.”
Emilie did not comprehend what her friend meant
to do, or could do; but she seemed to repose tranquilly
on her promise, and like a vine that has
drooped till its delicate tendrils caught a support,
she clung to Gertrude in secure dependence, and
soon fell asleep as quiet as a child in the sanctuary
of its mother's arms.
The next morning as Gertrude was indulging
the children, and herself no less than the children,
in a game of romps in the nursery, she received a
summons to Mrs. Layton's apartment. She found
that lady reclining on her sofa, her window-curtains
so arranged as to admit only a flattering twilight.
A new novel, a new poem, bouquets of fresh flowers,
and half a dozen notes on perfumed and colored
paper, lay on the table before her. She was reading
an ode to childhood, and her eyes were suffused
with the tears which the poet's imagination had called
forth. Before Gertrude had closed the door,
the children, disappointed at being so suddenly deprived
of their favorite pleasure, came shouting
after her. “Shut them out---shut the mout,” cried
Mrs. Layton, “I cannot have my room turned into
a ménagerie---ah, thank Heaven, now we are quiet
again. Come and sit with me, dearest, not `under
the green wood-tree'---that is the luxury of Clarenceville—
but on my sofa, where we can better
defy `winter and rough weather.' Here is a harvest
for you, the rarest and most costly flowers
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delicately directed to `Mrs. L., for herself, her friend,
and Miss Emilie'—a proposition from the major
that we should make up a party for the masquerade—
and lastly, a diplomatic letter from Mr. Morley.
Listen to it, Gertrude, for thought addressed to me,
it has been studiously adapted to your ear.”
“My dear Madam—I have just received a letter
“from Mr. Clarence, who was a particular friend
“of my father.” Ha! ha! Gertrude, love plays
strange things with chronology—Morley is full five
and forty, which I take to be half a lustre in advance
of your father; but allons! “He recommends a
“friend of his, Mr. Randolph Marion, for the office
“of—, and says, what may be true though flatter
“ing, that my influence will decide who shall
“be the successful candidate. Nothing in life
“would give me greater pleasure than to oblige Mr.
“Clarence, but I am unfortunately in a degree
“committed to a very zealous and useful member of
“our party. If however your fair friend, Miss C.
“is interested in Marion, (I do not mean en amante,
“for I understand there is no interest of a delicate
“nature in question,) I shall make every effort and
“sacrifice to oblige her. Will you assure her of
“this, after ascertaining her wishes in the most re
“cherchée manner imaginable. Your sex are born
“diplomatists. Oh that you, my dear Madam,
“would vouchsafe to be my minister plenipoten-
“tiary `dans les affaires du cœur!'
“I remain, Madam,
“Yours, with infinite respect,
“and regard, &c. &c. &c.
“Stephen Morley.”
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“Les affaires du cœur!” repeated Mrs. Layton,
“Oh Love, what hypocrisies are practised in thy
name!—but what says my `fair friend' to Mr. Morley?”
“That he can in no way do me so great a favor
as by securing the appointment of Randolph Marion.”
“But my `fair friend' must understand that the
exchange of equivalents is a favorite principle, in
the political economy of certain politicians; and
that Mr. Morley expects that the gift of this office
to Marion, shall be a make-weight to turn the matrimonial
scale in his favor?”
“I shall not be deterred by any fastidious reference
to Mr. Morley's expectations, from getting
an advantage in this barter trade, of which I am
the unhappy object—particularly as the advantage
is one in which I have no personal interest, I will myself
write a reply to Mr. Morley, and if—if Marion
obtains the office, will it not be possible, Mrs. Layton?”
“Nothing could be less explicit than Gertrude's
words; nothing more so, than her eager, penetrating
look. Mrs. Layton understood her perfectly, and
replied emphatically, and with chilling coldness,
“not possible.”
Gertrude, with abated, not extinguished hope,
wrote the note, and despatched it to Morley. That
finished, `the next affairs in order,' said Mrs. Layton,
are these bouquets from your lack-brain suitors,
Daisy and Smith. I gave them some lessons, last
evening, in the vocabulary of flowers. Daisy has
sent the emblems of all the passions, sentiments, and
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emotions of humanity, so that if he finds it convenient
not to mean one, he can mean another. My
friend Daisy understands that part of wisdom, which
is wariness, but poor Smith has staked all on a single
die. Here is his declaration, in a half bushel of
rose-buds!”
“And am I expected to comprehend their symbolical
language?”
“Oh, no; give yourself no farther trouble, than to
grace the flowers in the wearing, and answer the
gentlemen when they speak their accustomed language
which, Heaven knows, is far enough from
that of these sweet interpreters of `thoughts that
breathe.' Here is a note from Flint; honest, practical,
every-day Flint. He asks me to lend him
Rousseau's Heloise! Mr. D. Flint, translated to
the sublimated region of sentiment; what a triumph
for you, Gertrude! But you have such a superb
indifference to all these honors—what are you examining
so critically?—the autograph of my friend
Gerald Roscoe; a note I have just received from
him inquiring after Emilie's health; he was at the
lecture last evening; he seems in a sentimental
mood; ah! l'éstrange chose que le sentiment! But
it is as natural to Roscoe, as soaring to the lark;
while poor Flint is like a stage-cupid, with pasteboard
wings. Gertrude, you are welcome to your
lovers, while I have Roscoe. Spare your blushes,
dearest.” Gertrude did blush, but it was at her
private interpretation of Roscoe's sentimental mood.
Mrs. Layton proceeded, “I mean while I have
Roscoe for my friend. He would never fall in love
with a married woman, at least, never tell his love;
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he is too American for that, though grâce à Dieu,
not precise. But we have not yet decided on
our answer to Daisy, will you go to the masquerade?
in mask of course, for I never remain a spectator,
where I may be an actor. Now you look as if
you were going to raise objections, and be afraid of
what papa will say.”
“No, I have no fear of the kind, I assure you,
Mrs. Layton. My father has no wish to be an external
conscience to me. He has given me certain
principles, but he leaves me at perfect liberty in their
application.”
Mrs. Layton shook her head: “I always shudder
when a girl, minus twenty, begins to talk of principles.
Spare me! spare me the virtue, that is
weighed in the balance, and squared by the rule.
Ma chère, you would be infinitely more fascinating,
if you would break through this thraldom.”
“A thraldom, Mrs. Layton, of which I am unconscious,
cannot be very oppressive. No condition
admits greater liberty than mine, a liberty that has
no other limit than the bounds set to protect our
virtue.”
“Heaven preserve us, Gertrude! I had no intention
of calling all this forth by a simple proposition
to join a masquerading party. You have raised a
whirlwind to blow away a feather. In one word,
will you go, en masque?”
“In one word then, Mrs. Layton, no.”
“Eh bien---that is settled.” Rather an awkward
pause ensued, and was broken off, to the relief of
both parties, by the entrance of a milliner's girl,
whom her mistress, Madame, had sent to Mrs.
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Layton with some beautiful specimens of newly arrived
Parisian finery. “Beautiful! beautiful!” exclaimed
Mrs. Layton, as she opened the box; “ah, Gertrude,
the advantages of fortune are countless---you
can indulge yourself in these luxuries to any extent.”
Miss Clarence did not seem disposed to avail
herself of the privilege, while Mrs. Layton with the
utmost eagerness selected some of the most costly
articles for Emilie and laid them aside, and then
tried on and decided to retain, a Gabrielle pélérine,
a Vallière cap, and Henri quatre ruff. “Now, my
good girl,” she said, “take the rest back, and tell
Madame I am infinitely obliged to her for giving
me the first choice.”
“Madame,” said the girl, modestly, “Madame
pinned the price to each article.”
“Yes—but she must know the prices?”
“Yes, ma'am---but Madame told me not to leave
the articles unless you paid for them.”
“Madame is excessively nice,” said Mrs. Layton,
coloring and throwing back the articles she had
selected for herself, but, instantly resuming the Gabrielle,
“I must have this,” she said, “it is so
graceful and piquante, and really I have nothing else
fit to wear this evening.” She emptied her purse
of its contents, five-and-twenty dollars, precisely the
amount of the Gabrielle. She gave the money to the
girl, who was re-folding and replacing the articles she
had first lain aside, “Stop, I keep those, she said,
and turning to Gertrude, added, in a half whisper,
“they are for Emilie—you know it is indispensable
she should be prepared for a certain occasion---what
shall I do about them?”
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Gertrude felt embarrassed; she perceived Mrs.
Layton expected she would offer to relieve her from
her dilemma, in the obvious way, by advancing the
money; but this she was resolved not to do, and she
replied coldly, “I really cannot advise you.”
Mrs. Layton looked displeased---and saying, in a
suppressed voice, “there is one alternative, though
not a very pleasant one,” she wrote a note, and gave
it to the girl—“Take it to the City-Hotel,” she said,
“inquire for Mr. Pedrillo—give it into his hands---
he will give you the money.”
“Mrs. Layton!” exclaimed Gertrude, starting up
and losing all her assumed coldness, “do not, I
beseech you, do that---allow me to pay for the
articles.”
“As you please,” replied Mrs. Layton, in the
most frigid manner. Gertrude flew to her apartment,
returned with her purse, paid the amount, and
the girl withdrew. Gertrude would have withdrawn
too, but Mrs. Layton, who had completely recovered
her self-possession, said, “you must not leave me,
dear Gertrude, till you have forgiven me for my
momentary displeasure; I misunderstood you, but
there is nothing that so shocks my feelings, as the
appearance of selfishness.”
There was something almost ludicrous to Gertrude,
in the sudden bouleversement of her ideas occasioned
by this speech. She expected Mrs. Layton
would devise some ingenious cover or extenuation
for her own culpable selfishness and indulged
vanity, but she was quite unprepared for this extravagant
self-delusion. Her heart ached too at the
sight of the ornaments that were destined to adorn
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the victim for the altar, and she stood between the
tragic and the comic muse, not knowing whether
to laugh or cry, when she was opportunely relieved
by another visiter.
An old woman entered the apartment and approached
Mrs. Layton, courtseying again and again,
in that submissive deferential manner that is so
foreign, so anti-American. Her accent was Swiss,
and her costume neat and national. She began
with an apology, `She would not have troubled the
lady just now, but the old man at home was starving
with cold, and another besides, who had the
chills of death on him---God help him---and Justine
said”---
“You are Justine's mother, then,” interrupted
Mrs. Layton.
“Yes, indeed, lady---I've been here so often I
thought the lady knew me; and Justine---God bless
the child---Justine said the five-and-twenty dollars
were waiting for me since the morning in the lady's
hands.”
Mrs. Layton had indeed at the first glance too
perfectly recognised the old woman, and anticipated
her claims. She had, after a hundred broken promises
to Justine, her maid, to whom she owed a
much larger sum, told her, not two hours before,
that she had twenty-five dollars ready for her; and
she now felt all the mortification---not of failing to
perform her contract, to such trifles she was accustomed---but
of an exposure before Gertrude, and
while the Gabriélle lay as a mute witness before her.
Mrs. Layton rather prided herself on speaking the
truth; it was a matter of taste with her, and she
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adhered to it unless driven to extremities. She was
even frank, so far as frankness consisted in gracefully
confessing faults that could not be concealed;
but those that are grossly deficient in one virtue,
will not be found martyrs to another, and rather
than it should appear to Gertrude, that she had
given for the Gabriélle the very money due and
promised to Justine, she said, though with evident
confusion, “Your daughter mistakes, my good woman,
I told her I would have the money for her to-morrow
morning.”
“God help us, then!” replied the old woman,
bursting into tears, “it is always so---to-morrow,
and to-morrow, and to-morrow---we shall all be dead
before your to-morrow comes to us, madam.”
“Allow me to lend you the twenty-five dollars,
Mrs. Layton,” said Gertrude. Mrs. Layton nodded
her acceptance, took the bills, and transferred them
to the woman, who thus unexpectedly relieved, turned
her streaming eyes to the source whence the relief
came. She had not before noticed Gertrude.
She now courtesied low to her, and, in the excess
of her gratitude, kissed her hands; and looking
at her again, she seemed struck with some new
emotion, and murmured and repeated, “it is—it is---
it must be---for the love of Heaven, my young
lady, let me speak with you alone!” Gertrude, at
an utter loss to conjecture the reason of this sudden
and mysterious interest, accompanied the old woman
into the entry. As soon as they were alone, “If
there is mercy in your heart, young lady,” she said,
“go along with me---there's not a moment to be
lost---Justine will tell you so.” She opened the
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nursery-door, summoned Justine, and whispered to
her, and Justine said earnestly, though with less impetuosity
than her mother, “Indeed, Miss, you had
best go with her---ye need fear nothing. She may
mistake, but if she's right, ye'll be sorry one day,
tender-hearted as ye are, if ye refuse her---that is,
if it is as my mother thinks, ye'll grieve that ye did
not go---indeed ye will.”
“For the love of God, Justine stop talking, and
bring the young lady's hat for her.” The hat and
cloak were brought, and Gertrude, feeling much
like a person groping in utter darkness, accompanied
her conductor to a miserable little dwelling, at
the upper extremity of Elm-street.
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CHAPTER VIII.
“O Death!—
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow,
From pomp and pleasure torn;
But oh! a bless'd relief to those,
That weary-laden mourn.”
Burns.
[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]
Gertrude's conductor had hurried on in advance
of her, partly as it seemed to preserve a respectful
distance, and partly to avoid any communication
with her. When she was within her humble
dwelling, she mounted to the second story, and winding
her way through a dark narrow passage to the
extremity of a back building, she reached a door,
at which she stopped for a moment, then placing
her finger on her lips, in token of silence, she signed
to Miss Clarence to await her, opened the door,
and disappeared. Gertrude heard a low murmur
within, but nothing to afford her a clue to the old
woman's purpose. `If I am brought here,' she
thought, `to be moved to charity by an extraordinary
spectacle of wretchedness, why this secresy?—
why Justine's and her mother's strange allusions?
The door was re-opened, and her name pronounced
by a well known voice, in a feeble, tender, and tranquil
tone. At the same time, the old woman, in explanation
of the part she had acted, held up before
Gertrude the picture of Trenton-falls. Gertrude
sprang forward, exclaiming “Louis Seton!” She
stood beside him, pressed his pale, emaciated hand
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to her lips, and expressed in her asking eye, what her
tongue could not utter. The old woman remained
at the door, wringing her hands, and giving vent in
her own language, to her interpretation of a scene
that appeared in her simple view, to tell the common
tale of true love and a broken heart on one
side; and of disdain, and late relenting on the other.
Seton was wrapped in a flannel gown, and sustained
by pillows in an upright position. His bed
was drawn as near as possible to the hearth. A
single chair, and a small table, on which lay some
implements of his art, and a bible, and some vials,
were all the furniture of his room; its neatness
and order indicated the kind care of his hostess.
His form was attenuated, his hands bloodless, a
consuming color burned in his hollow cheeks, his
brow was pale and fixed as marble, his eye bright as
if the soul had there concentrated all its fires, and
his mouth, that flexible feature that first betrays the
mutations of feeling, was serene and rigid, as if the
seal of death were already set upon it.
At the first sight of Gertrude, a faint color overspread
his brow and temples; his lips trembled, and
his bosom heaved, he very soon however recovered
his composure, and said, “do not weep my dear
friend, but rather rejoice with me.”
“Nay, nay,” cried the old woman, advancing,
“weep on, child; for the love of Christ, weep on,
till his dying lips shall speak the word of peace to
you.”
“Dying!” echoed Gertrude, for that was the only
word that had made a distinct impression on her
sense; dying! oh, it cannot be. He must have a
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physician, and better lodgings. My good friend, hasten
back to Mrs. Layton's, and bring my servant here.
“Bless you, young lady, it's too late; it's a miracle
he has lasted to see ye; aud ye'd better use the
spared minutes to lighten your conscience.”
Seton smiled faintly. “She is right, Gertrude,
I am dying, but do not let that grieve you; death is
to me, the happiest circumstance of my existence;”
then turning to the old woman, he added, “Marie,
I have nothing to forgive this lady; she has been
an angel of mercy to me.”
“God forgive me! she looks like it; ah, pity,”
she exclaimed, as the other natural solution of this
sad meeting occurred to her simple mind, “ah pity,
pity that ye ever parted! pity that ye have so met!”
Seton manifested no emotion at these vehement
exclamations, but calmly told Marie, he had much
to communicate to his friend; and she, after mending
the fire, and arranging some emollients, provided
by a dispensary-physician, left the apartment!
“Oh Louis,” said Gertrude, “why have you let
us remain in such cruel ignorance of your condition;
you have not surely ever for a moment, doubted
my father's sincere affection for you—or mine?”
“No, Gertrude, never.”
“And you certainly knew, there was nothing I
desired so much, as to serve you.”
“Yes, I well knew there was nothing too much to
expect from you, and your noble-minded father; but
I have been sick, and diseased in mind, Gertrude.”
“And was that a reason why you should fly
from the offices of affection.”
“Reason! I have been deprived of reason, and
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long before my reason was gone, my feelings were
diseased and perverted, and my pride unsubdued, I
shrunk from an accumulating load of obligation.
One generous feeling I had. I could not bear to
be to you, Gertrude, like the veiled skeletons at the
feasts of the Egyptians, for ever presenting before
you gloomy images, and calling up sad thoughts.”
“Oh, how wrong you were, Louis! I had so few
objects of affection! Next to my father, you were
most important to my happiness.”
“Louis pressed her hand to his lips. “I was
wrong,” he said; “I underrated the generosity of
your affection, and I grossly magnified my own
miseries, but it's all past now; you will forgive me,
Gertrude?”
“Forgive you! do not speak of forgiveness---I
never, never shall forget that you have suffered such
extremity; and that it has come to this—”
“My dear friend, do not aflict yourself thus—my
troubles have all ended happily.” There was a
singular contrast and change, in both Gertrude and
Seton. He was collected and serene, as if he had
already touched the shore of eternal peace. She
agitated, as one still tempest-tost on the uncertain
waves of life. But after a little while, she regained
her usual ascendancy over her emotions, and
ashamed that she had for a moment disturbed his holy
peace, she sat down beside him, and listened with
tolerable composure, to his relation of the particulars
of his life, since they parted. During his recital
he had frequent turns of fainting, but they were
relieved by intervals of rest.
“My life is so far spent,” he said, “that I can
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only glance at the past. There was much, of
which you were ignorant, Gertrude, that aggravated
my malady before we left Clarenceville for Trenton.
The immediate cause of my melancholy was suspected,
if not known, and I was subjected to the
gossiping scrutiny of our neighbors, and the vulgar
intimations of the servants. Coarse minds graduate
others by their external condition. You were
rich, and I was poor, and therefore in their estimation,
on their level. You remember the circumstances that
led me to betray my cherished passion. My nerves
were laid bare by this exposure, and while I shrunk
from the slightest touch, I was told that one said,
`it was a shame for a beggarly drawing-master to
take advantage of Mr. Clarence' generosity,' and
another said, `still waters run deep, but who would
have thought of Louis Seton playing such a game?'
and `she has served him right—she will carry her
fortune to a better market than Louis Seton's.”'
“Oh spare me—spare me, Louis.”
“I repeat this to you, Gertrude, because it is my
only apology for having yielded to a sickly sensibility,
compounded of physical weakness, pride,
and humility.”
“I want to know no more, Louis; you have suffered,
and I have been the cause.”
“The cause was innocent, and the suffering is
past, Gertrude—therefore listen patiently. We went
to Trenton. Delirious as I was, I perfectly remembered
our progress over those wild rocks—with
what skill and resolution you lured me on and protracted
my last act of madness, till I was saved by
a wonderful intervention. At the time I believed
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my preserver to be a supernatural being. I fancied,
in the lawless vagaries of my mind, that his
face had been revealed to me in a dream; but afterwards
I remembered the resemblance was to a head
you once painted from memory—the face of a beautiful
youth, the friend, as you told me, of your
brother. Gertrude, do not avert your face. I
know not what that deep blush means, but nothing
it can mean would disturb me now. How am I
changed! Do you remember that, proud of your
proficiency in my art, I wished to show the head to
your father, and that to end my importunity you threw
it in the fire? What hours of tormenting thoughts—
what nights of watchfulness did that simple act
cost me, so do we selfishly shrink from the appropriation
of affections to another, even when unattainable
to ourselves.” Seton's voice faltered for a moment.
“As I retrace my former feelings,” he continued,
“their shadows cross me. But to return to
the night at Trenton. The image of your figure, as I
saw you when I first opened my eyes, kneeling, and a
celestial expression lighting up your face, remained
in my mind in all the freshness of its actual presentment.
It abode with me in darkness, in solitude, in
misery—in madness, Gertrude.”
“After I escaped from your father's beneficent
offers at Trenton, I made my way to New-York---
I know not how---my recollections of that time are
like the confused and imperfect images of a distressful
dream. I have since learned that I was
found perishing in the street. It was impossible to
identify me, and I was taken to the alms-house,
and placed with the maniacs, supported by public
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charity. I cannot now, when all other evils have
lost their power to wound me, look back without
shuddering, on that period when neglect, injudicious
treatment, privation, darkness, a sense of
wrong, conscious degradation, misery in every form,
exasperated my disease. Oh, Gertrude, is it not
strange that men rioting in luxuries, and still more
strange that those who are blessed with quiet homes
of health and happiness, should permit their brethren
suffering under the visitation of the severest of physical
evils, to languish in the receptacles of poverty---in
the dungeons allotted to crime?”
Gertrude answered this appeal by a solemn resolution,
which she afterwards religiously performed,
to make a rich offering to an unequivocal and neglected
form of charity. Seton proceeded: “Gertrude,
the person whose name I have since ascertained
to be Roscoe, again appeared to rescue me
from a more dreadful fate than that from which he
saved me at Trenton. I know not what motive led
him to inspect the wards of the alms-house, but
there he found me, scratching on the wall the outlines
of the scene at Trenton, with a bone which I
had taken from my soup, and sharpened for that purpose.
He instantly recognised me. I hailed him
as God's messenger to me, and besought him to release
me. He listened to me---he looked with deep
interest at the outline I had traced, and after ascertaining
that I was harmless and convalescing, he
promised to take me from my imprisonment. The
same day he returned, and conveyed me to a farmer's
house in a retired spot on Long Island.” Seton
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paused, and Gertrude, released from the intense
attention she had given, covered her face and wept
without restraint. Her bitter grief for all Seton
had endured, was mingled with a feeling very different
but scarcely less affecting---a feeling that Heaven
had linked her sympathies with Roscoe's, had mysteriously
interwoven the chain of their purposes, and
feelings. She felt keenly too, the delicacy which
Roscoe had manifested in withholding from her the
particulars of Seton's sufferings, and of his generous
part in ministering to his relief. “Gertrude,” resumed
Seton, in a voice of the deepest tenderness,
“I cannot mistake this emotion---you know Roscoe---
it is as it should be---”
She started as if the secrets of her inmost heart
had been revealed. She cleared her voice, and
made an effort to speak, for she could not permit
such an inference from her emotion. Seton laid his
hand on hers, “I ask no explanation---no communication,
Gertrude.” Again he reverted to himself.
“Never shall I forget the first days of my emancipation---my
keen enjoyment of liberty and nature. It
was early in October---the sky was cloudless---the
air serene and balmy. Oh, how exquisitely I relished
those common and neglected bounties of
Heaven! I lived in the open air. The clear soft
skies, the transparent atmosphere, all nature seemed
to me instinct with the Spirit of God, and it was
so, to my awakened mind. The world appeared to
me to lie in one dark total eclipse, and myself to be
conveyed beyond the reign of shadows---to dwell
in light---to be alone in the universe with God.”
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“These blissful days soon passed, and I was confined
to the house by inclement weather. Roscoe
sent me some implements for painting---I seized
them as a hungry man would have snatched at food.
I finished at one sitting the scene at Trenton. I
perceived myself the extravagance of the picture,
and sat down to the work anew. I painted another,
and another, and another. Each was better than
the last, and each indicated a correspondent progress
in the recovery of reason. The application
to an habitual employment restored my thoughts to
their natural order of succession, and my feelings to
their natural temperature.
“I never communicated my name, or spoke of
you to Roscoe. For a long time I retained my
first illusion, and believed he was a supernatural
being; and it was very long before I could bear to
pronounce your name. By degrees these illusions
and extravagancies lost their force. I no longer
withheld myself from you and your father from
pride, or morbid sensibility, but I wished to test my
moral strength in solitude, before I encountered new
trials; my brothers, I had reason to think, believed
me dead—I wished, for a time, to be dead to
the world. I wrote to Roscoe, and expressed my
gratitude, and acquainted him with my determination.
“It is now eight weeks since I left my place of
refuge---a changed man. My mind, like the body
refreshed by sleep, awoke to new vigor. The engrossing
passion that had absorbed my faculties,
was gone—no, not gone, Gertrude, but converted
to a peaceful, rational sentiment, that accords with
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happiness and is immortal in its nature—a sentiment
as distinct from the passion that had agitated
my being, as the elements are in their natural and
gentle ministry from their wildest strife and desolation.
[1]
“I was changed too in other respects. The
world, `at best a broken reed, but oft a spear'---the
world had lost its power to wound me. The operations
of the spirit are so mysterious, the modes of
its communication with the Divinity so incomprehensible,
that I shrink from attempting to communicate,
even to you, Gertrude, the convictions of
my own mind. I had new views, new hopes, and
purposes—whence came they? not from the outward
world—they were the inspiration of Heaven.
“I applied myself to painting; the avails of my
constant labor were small; and while, from the
elated state of my mind, I was unconscious of the
presence of disease, consumption was sapping my
life---the progress of the malady was accelerated by my
rashness. A painter had employed me to finish the
draperies of some portraits. I was so exhausted by
the labors of the day, that I shrunk from walking
to my lodgings, and I slept on his bare floor. At
the end of the week I was carried home; there a
new shock awaited me—my picture, my sacred
treasure, had been sent to an auction, to raise the
pittance due to my landlady. I forgot my sickness
and my weakness, and rushed out of the house to
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recover it. Again I met Roscoe, who seemed
always sent to me in my extremity---he had the
picture, and restored it to me; and I confess to you
I was scarcely less grateful than when he saved my
life, or when he restored my liberty. I removed my
lodgings to this place. I have painfully earned a
subsistence till the last ten days, and since then I
have received every kindness from this good old
Swiss woman.”
“But why, why,” asked Gertrude, “have you
not written to us?”
“I have twice written, but received no answer;
I knew this was accidental. I had relinquished all
hope of hearing from you; God be praised that old
Marie met you, and was induced by your resemblance
to the picture, to ask you to come here.”
Gertrude assigned her father's absence from Clarenceville
as the cause of Seton's receiving no replies
to his letters; and then, but not without an
obvious effort, she asked, `why he had not communicated
his wants to Roscoe?'
“I did, yesterday, send a note to the post-office
for him, but my hand was tremulous and stiff with
cold, and the direction may not have been legible.
But, truly, Gertrude, I have wanted little; a mortal
sickness admits but few alleviations. My attendant
has been kind, and what she could not provide for
me, I have been satisfied without.”
Nature had put forth her mysterious force—Gertrude's
presence soothed and stimulated him, and
Seton was sustained through his narrative by an
energy of feeling that seemed to hold death in abeyance.
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He had not spoken continuously, but with frequent
and fearful interruptions, and as his voice died
away in the conclusion, and his eyes became fixed
in an eager, soul-piercing gaze, Gertrude, who had
never before seen a human being in extremity, was
appalled with the infalliable tokens of approaching
death. Seton laid her hand on his heart---“it beats
feebly,” he said, “my life is fast passing away;”
and added, with an expression of some concern,
“do you fear to stay alone with me, Gertrude?”
“No—no Louis!” she replied, subduing her natural
shrinkings, “I have no fear—no wish, but to
remain with you.”
“I thank God!” said Seton, with a smile of sweet
serenity, “my last wish is gratified—your presence,
Gertrude, makes my dismissal happier.”
Seton's fears of death had long been vanquished
by the only force that can subdue its terrors—the
force of religious faith. He had studied the Christian
revelation faithfully, and he believed it, not with
a mere intellectual, cold assent, but with the rapture
of the mortal who reads there the charter of his immortality—
with the exultation of the prisoner who
receives the promise of pardon and release. He
found there the solution of his sufferings. What if
his life had been a dark and forlorn scene? His
brief sorrows had been God's ministers to prepare
his spirit for inextinguishable happiness. What if
he had wandered in dismal exile through a far and
foreign land? His path lay homeward, and could
he shrink and tremble when his foot was on the
threshold of his Father's house? Oh, no. The decline
of life was to him the crumbling of his
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prisonwalls. He had watched with joy, through solitary
days and wakeful nights, the decay of the mortal
mould, that encumbered and imprisoned his longing
spirit.
Life had never, in its blithe and morning hour,
been bright to him. His childhood had been neglected—
his youth sickly—his manhood blasted—
his affections, those ordained and sweetest springs
of happiness, sources of misery. They were now
elevated far above the accidents of life, and ready
to expand and rest in the celestial region for which
they were created.
Seton's voice was exhausted by the long effort it
had sustained. He afterwards spoke little, but no
power of language could have added force to his
few and brief expressions of faith and tranquillity—
to the eloquence of his silence, when his eye was
raised in devotion, or beamed with holy revealings
from the sanctuary of his soul. Gertrude's spirit
rose with his. There was something affecting and
elevating in her disregard of the circumstances of
death—so appalling to the young and inexperienced—
in her tender manifestations of sacred sympathy
with the departing spirit. Hour after hour
passed away. Marie came in occasionally to render
little services. The day was drawing to its
close. The old woman beckoned Gertrude to the
door. “He is changing fast,” she said, and participating
to a very old and general superstition, she
added, “He will go with the turn of the tide: will
you not have some one called?—it is a fearful
thing, young lady, to bide alone.”
Gertrude, though not without some natural
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reluctancy, would not permit it to interfere with the
wish Seton had expressed, and she again assured
Marie that she preferred no person should be summoned—
and Marie, sorely against her own judgment,
assented; but as she descended the stairs,
meditating on the singular boldness of the young
lady, she was summoned to the street-door by a
loud knocking. She opened it to Gerald Roscoe,
and inferring from his eager inquiries, that he was
a particular friend of Seton, and rightly judging
that there was no time to be lost in the preliminaries
of ceremony, she bade him follow her. She opened
the door of Seton's apartment, and signed to Roscoe
to approach cautiously. He did so, and when
he reached the threshold he stood as if he were spell-bound.
Seton was too far gone, Gertrude too
deeply absorbed, to observe him.
The setting sun shone brightly through the only
window in the apartment. Seton's eye was turned
towards it. As the last ray faded away, he lifted his
eye to Gertrude, and said with perfect distinctness,
“My last moment is bright too, Gertrude.” A slight
convulsion passed over his features. He made a sudden
effort to raise his head. Gertrude rested it on her
bosom. A celestial smile, a quivering light from the
soul played over his lips, he half uttered the last prayer
of faith, `Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!' and all was
over.—Gertrude remained motionless, bending
over the vacant form. The outward world vanished
from before her. It seemed to her that the veil was
lifted that envelopes the unknown world, and that
she touched its blissful shore with the released spirit.
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But to return from this high mysterious vision, to
the silent chamber, and the lifeless form!—to the
penetrating sense of separation and loss!—this is the
terror of death. Death comes to the body only, it is
but the change of that frame that is at one moment the
expressive organ of the ever-living spirit, and the
next, worthless clay, that mocks our grief with its
stillness and immobility. This was the moment of
grief and unrepressed tears; afterwards came the
grateful considerations that she had been permitted
to witness, and in some degree to minister to the
peace of Seton's departure—that his conflict with
the jarring elements of this world was ended, and
that she had seen the demonstrations of the omnipotent
power of religion.
Roscoe watched her with intense interest as she
bent over Seton, her hands clasped, her face lit with
the tenderness of affection, her eye raised in the
fervency of devotion. She pressed her lips to Seton's
brow. `She loves him,' thought Roscoe, `but
it is with that excellence with which angels love
good men.'
“Ye'd best speak to the young lady,” said
Marie, who thought that time enough had been allowed
to the exclusive indulgence of Miss Clarence'
feelings. Gertrude turned at the sound of her voice,
and for the first time perceived Gerald Roscoe.
The sight of him excited no selfish emotion. Her
feelings were now all in one channel, and he appeared
to her only as Seton's friend and benefactor.
She advanced, gave him her hand frankly, and expressed
her sorrow that he had not come sooner, and
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her warm unmeasured gratitude for his generous
kindness to Seton.
The intercourse of young persons of different
sexes is so apt to be embarrassed by the conscious
desire to please, and by the artificial modes of
polished society, that the genuine motions of the
mind are seldom embodied in unpremeditated language.
Gertrude had never before met Roscoe
without a degree of embarrassment that imparted
to her manners a slight shade of constraint; but
now, under the influence of deep and strongly excited
sensibility, she forgot all that was of peculiar
interest in their relation to each other, and talked to
him with the freedom of intimate friendship. The
occasion gave a tenderness to her manner, and her
raised feelings an eloquence to her expressions, that
penetrated Roscoe's heart. She did not, as on
every former occasion, studiously avoid any allusion
to herself, nor measure her phrases as if she were beset
with rocks and quicksands. She spoke of her
affection for Seton as if he had been her brother,
and only veiled a part of the truth when she imputed
the disease of his mind, entirely to a morbid sensibility
preying on a delicate frame.
Roscoe perceived that Gertrude was off her
guard, and seemed utterly to have forgotten the secret
she had so sedulously kept. He expected that
some accidental word would relieve his curiosity,
which though rebuked for a moment, had revived,
and put him on the rack of alternate hope, and disappointment.
One natural question, one insidious
word, might elicit what he so ardently desired to
know; but that word would not be generous or
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honorable, and therefore could not be uttered by
him. He was provoked at himself, that this importunate
thought should violate the sanctity of such a
moment; still it would not down. He turned his
eye to Seton's lifeless form. He gazed at Gertrude
with a far deeper interest than he had ever before
felt; he listened with thrilling interest to all she
said, yet that impertinent query, `who can she be?'
disturbed the harmony of his mind, like a creaking
hinge. He heard the old woman again mounting
the stairs—`now,' he thought, `her name must be
spoken, or something said that will dissolve this
spell.' But Marie approached Gertrude, who was
silently gazing on Seton, with the last yearnings of
affection, and addressed her, according to her usual
custom, in the third person—“a carriage was waiting
for the lady,” she said, “and here was a note
from the mistress.” Roscoe smiled, in spite of his
vexation, at the simple mode in which his hopes
were baffled.
The note was from Mrs. Layton, in reply to a
line Gertrude had sent, explaining her detention.
“My sweetest Gertrude,” said the note, “I send a
“carriage for you—you must indeed come home—
“you are exposing yourself to too severe a trial—
“I should have come immediately to you, but my
“feelings unfit me for scenes. Poor, poor Se
“ton! `he dies a most rare youth of melancholy.'
“How affecting such a death, in this heartless
“world! You probably will prefer that the funeral
“solemnities should be at Trinity-Church. As
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“soon as we know your wishes, Layton will make
“all the arrangements.
“Dieu te garde, ma chère.
“G. L.”
`Funeral solemnties at Trinity-Church!' repeated
Gertrude to herself, `an ostentatious funeral
would be a mockery to him who so shunned the
world's eye while living.'
“Mr. Seton,” she said, turning to Roseoe, “was
as you well know, a total stranger in the city. I am
reluctant to leave the last rites to hirelings; and if
you, Mr. Roscoe—”
Roscoe interrupted her faltering request, with an
assurance that she had only anticipated him—that he
should make every necessary arrangement, and
should feel himself happy in being permitted to render
the last tribute of humanity to her friend.
Gertrude expressed her gratitude for all he had
done, and for all he promised to do, with so much
warmth and gracefulness that Roscoe felt he had
given no equivalent for such thanks from such a
source; and yet he thought, if she does feel obliged
to me, there is a boon withheld, which would requite
them a thousandfold.' But this boon was not
even hinted at, and Gertrude had actually left the
apartment, and was in the carriage on her way home,
before the question occurred to her, and then it
struck her like an electric flash, whether she had betrayed
her name. She reviewed all that had passed;
she tried to recall every word, but that she was
not able to satisfy herself, is the best proof of the
engrossing emotions Seton's death had excited.
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The heroines of our times live in a business
world, and even funeral rites cannot be a matter of
pure sentiment. Miss Clarence had been too long
intrusted with the responsibility of pecuniary affairs,
to fall into a feminine obliviousness in matters
of expense, and as soon as she was in her own
apartment, she sent for Justine, and giving her a
sum of money, she requested her to place it in her
mother's hands, to be appropriated to Mr. Seton's
funeral charges. To this, she added a compensation
for Marie's services, and a generous reward for
her fidelity and kindness.
Justine, accustomed to Mrs. Layton's extravagant
expressions of feeling, and her utter neglect
of duties, had fallen into the common error of generalizing
her individual experience, and honestly believed,
that all fine ladies exhibited their sensibilities
in nervous affection, and were subject to lapses
of memory in money affairs; and she regarded Miss
Clarence with a wonder and satisfaction, similar to
that of a naturalist, who is analyzing a new species
in nature.
“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, as she stowed away
the separate rolls of bills in her pocket-book, “how
singular! my sweet young lady you look quite
spent, and yet, God bless you—you think of all this
as if you had no feelings, and were not a lady, at all.”
`Any man may die heroically in company,' said
Voltaire. He lived in `company,' and it was his
misfortune to find food for his scoffing wit in the
perpetual masquerade of artificial society. He fed
his own vanity with its natural and abounding nutriment—
the follies of his species. But he should
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have raised his eye from the feet of clay, to the fine
gold of the image—he should have penetrated beyond
the seats of the money-changers, to the sacred
fire that burnt within the holy of holies—to the divine
principle in the soul of man. Had he been familiar
with the retreats of unaffected and unostentatious
virtue—had he witnessed the quiet death of the
faithful, unsullied by superstition, exaggeration, or
self-delusion, he might have been saved from his unbelief
in human virtue, the most dangerous of all
skepticism—he might have employed his delightful,
unimitated and inimitable talents in developing the
noble capacities, and advancing the high destinies
of man, instead of `riant comme un démon ou comme
un singe des miséres de cette espèce humaine.'
Let the skeptic enter such a chamber of death,
as Louis Seton's, and see the eye of faith kindle
with celestial light, as the poor struggler with the
evils of life, approaches the moment of release—
let him observe the profound peace that earth can
no longer trouble; and then let him, if he can, employ
the mind God has given him, to controvert
the immortality of that mind—the truth, that sustains
man amid wrong, oppression, disappointment,
calamity in every form, and in that fearful visitation
which comes alike to all.
eaf341v2.n1[1] It is remarked by an able medical writer on the diseases of the
mind, that persons whose madness has been induced by love rarely
retain the passion after the recovery of reason. Such a circumstance
is related of one of the princes of Condé.
-- 145 --
CHAPTER IX.
“S'il étoit reconnu qui'l faut cousidérer la pensée comme une
maladie contre laquelle un régime reguliér est nécessaire, on ne
saurait rien imaginer de mieux qu'un genre de distraction à la
fois s'ètourdissant et insipide.”
Mad de Stael.
[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]
Ten days subsequent to Seton's death passed
away without any incident in the affairs of our dramatis
personæ worthy of being recorded. Miss Clarence
availed herself of a cold, (an auxiliary always at hand
in a New York winter,) as a pretext for remaining in
her own apartment. She did not repine at Seton's
death, but wisely regarded it as a happy release.
She had, however, been too long and too affectionately
attached to him not to be deeply affected by
the knowledge of his sufferings, and not to yield her
mind to the serious emotions, and thoughts that
death calls forth.
Nothing could be more opportune than this
retirement to Emilie, who under the pretext of devotion
to her friend, sheltered herself from the observation
of the world, and the ardent attentions
of Pedrillo.
Mrs. Layton, conscious that she had fallen in Gertrude's
esteem, and ambitious to regain the admiration
that had been so flattering to her, exerted with
fresh resolution all her powers of fascination. She
endured a week's seclusion without apparent ennui.
She adapted herself with nice tact to the current
of Gertrude's feelings—was serious, sympathetic,
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and sentimental, but it would not all do. Gertrude
had waked from her dream, and imagination could
not repeat its illusions. The qualities that had captivated
her had vanished in smoke, like the body of
the Arabian magician, and Gertrude's incredulity in
the reality of that which had once deceived her, was
not, like the fisherman's, affected. When an eloquent
or enthusiastic strain flowed from Mrs. Layton's lips,
`why,' thought our practical heroine, `is not that
fervid feeling directed to Emilie?'—`why is it not
employed to avert her impending fate?' When
Mrs. Layton complained of her destiny, and lamented
that she had no adequate object to employ her
faculties and fill the void in her heart, Gertrude
thought of her neglected children. `If her conjugal
happiness is blasted,' she said, `can a mother
want objects to elicit her noblest faculties, and her
tenderest affections?' As an intimate intercourse
brought their minds into close comparison, Gertrude
perceived they were not, on any subject,
attuned to the same key. They were both well
versed in the elegant literature of the day, but their
tastes were always in opposition. In poetry, Mrs.
Layton preferred that which addressed the passions;
Gertrude, that which touched the affections. Mrs.
Layton was an idolator of Byron. Her imagination
was stimulated by the tragic history of his
heroes, whose feelings are all passions, and whose
deeds are almost all crimes. She delighted in his
descriptions of the outward world—the visible paradise
of poetry, which the evil spirit of his mighty
genius has sometimes overshadowed with its own
image. Gertrude loved all the poets—the glorious
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company—but she preferred the touching simplicity,
the penetrating tenderness of Burns, and the perfect
yet poetic fidelity of our own Bryant, the mirror of nature,
that like a serene lake, gives back the image of
the delicate floweret and the lofty tree, as clearly defined,
as soft and beautiful as their originals in the ethereal
atmosphere. Mrs. Layton revelled in the Sybilline
revelations of Mad de Stael. Gertrude's soul
was thrilled by them, but she preferred Miss Edgeworth—
preferred the beneficent genius who has
made the actual social world better and happier, to
her who by a motion of her wand could create an
imaginative world, and disclose a possible, but unattainable
beauty. Among heroines, Corinne was
Mrs. Layton's favorite. Gertrude preferred Rebecca—
she who conquered, to her who was the
victim of love. Even Jeanie Deans, (pardon her
humble taste, gentle reader,) that personification of
truth—that unvarnished picture of moral beauty,
moved her heart more than the gifted Corinne. It
would be an endless task to enumerate the diversity
of their tastes in nature, in music, in all the arts.
Mrs. Layton's sensibility was the fruit of a highly
cultivated imagination; Gertrude's, the instinct of
a generous heart. Mrs. Layton required high
stimulants, and artificial excitements—the miraculous
touch of the prophet to bring it forth. Gertrude's
was moved by natural impulses, and flowed from an
ever-living fountain. Thus opposed in the very
texture of their characters, it was impossible for
either party to derive much enjoyment from a continued
exclusive intercourse, and Mrs. Layton was
impatient to plunge again into society, where her
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ready wit, and graceful facile manners, were available
qualities.
“My dear Gertrude,” said she, one particularly
bright morning, “I cannot consent to your and
Emilie's immuring yourselves any longer. Our
door-bell will be rung by a dear five hundred
friends, at least, to-day; and it is really a farce,
when you are so well, and looking so remarkably
well, too, to send them away with a mere bulletin of
your health—so, unless you choose to permit the
real cause of your sentimental seclusion to peep out,
I beg you will grace my parlor.”
“We are your subjects, and owe you passive
obedience,” replied Gertrude, who as soon as she
perceived her liability to excite curiosity, determinto
avoid it.
“You are a dear, reasonable creature, Gertrude,
and I wish I had made my request sooner, for really
I have been tormented to death with Pedrillo's impatience,
(poor fellow! it's no wonder, it will not
do for Em' to dilly dally much longer,)—and Layton,
too, has been in the worst possible humor—by
the way he left a note for you this morning—some
one of your honorable suitors has probably chosen
him for mediator”—she rung the bell, and ordered
the servant to bring Miss Clarence a note from Mr.
Layton's dressing-room table. It was brought,
and contained no soft intercession, but a nonchalant
sort of a request that Miss Clarence would favor
him with the loan of five hundred dollars for a few
days. Gertrude hesitated for a moment. She habitually
regarded her fortune, like the other gifts of
Providence, as a sacred trust, to be applied to the
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best uses, and she could not appropriate so considerable
a sum without being somewhat disturbed by
the belief that it was to be applied to an idle or
profligate purpose.
Mrs. Layton who, though she had not chosen to
appear so, was really aware of the contents of the
note, watched the expression of Gertrude's countenance,
and put her own interpretation on it. `Oh,'
thought she, `how unlike poor me! If I had her
wealth, I should not give a second thought to so
pitiful a sum! but money does so harden the heart!'
Gertrude hesitated but a moment. `I cannot refuse,
' thought she, `while a guest in his house,' and
thus quieting her conscience, she signed a check
for the amount, and enclosed it in a note to Layton.
“Ah—is that it?” said Mrs. Layton, looking at
her with a smile, and speaking in a tone of surprise.
“Poor Layton! alas! alas! Gertrude, we do live
in a `bank-note world,' and happy are they who
have enough of this mundane trash—But come,
my dearest, finish your toilet—thank Heaven, you
as well as myself, look the better for its tender
mercies—but Emilie—it is too provoking—she has
just tucked her wavy locks behind her ears, and she
looks like the beau-ideal of painting, or like
“The forms that wove in Fancy's loom,
Float in light visions round the poet's head.”
Upon my word, I think she becomes the penseroso.”
“Oh, mother!” said Emilie. It was but a word—
but Gertrude thought a word spoken in such a
tone of feeling and remonstrance, should have
pierced the mother's heart. Emilie was standing
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beside her, clasping her bracelet. Gertrude kissed
her. “This fair round cheek was made for smiles,
not tears, and,” she added, glancing her eye at
Mrs. Layton, and speaking with an energy not at
all agreeable to that lady, “God forbid she should
be doomed to them!”
“Amen!” responded Mrs. Layton. And now,
young ladies, our orisons being ended, let us doscend
to mortal affairs”—and smoothing her brow,
she led the way down stairs. As they reached the
lower entry, the door-bell rang, and Mrs. Layton,
glancing her eye through the side-window,exclaimed,
“there's Patty Sprague!—I wish she were a thousand
miles off.” The ladies passed into the parlor,
and the servant to the door, followed by one of the
children who happened to be loitering there. The
door was opened, and Miss Patty appeared—`Ah!'
said she to the little boy who was springing on the
door-step, and pulled back by the servant, `Ah Julian,
is mama at home, dear?
“Yes, Miss Patty,” he replied, and like a bird,
vexed that the door of his cage was reclosed upon
him, he pecked at the first object within his reach.
“Yes, Miss Patty, but she said she wished you were
a thousand miles off.”
“Never tell tales out of school, dearie,” rejoined
Miss Patty, patting the boy's cheek, and she
proceeded to the parlor, without being in the slightest
degree checked or irritated. Miss Patty belonged
to the single sisterhood; a community,
which in the march of civilization, is losing its distinctive
characteristics, but is still strikingly marked
in the `lone conspicuity' of some of its members.
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Among these few, Miss Patty stood out in such bold
relief, that her image would have befitted the banner
of the order. She was a belle before the revolution;
had played `cruel Barbara Allen' to one or two patriots,
who unlike poor `Jemmy Grove,' survived and
lived to fight vigorously for their country. She
had flirted with British officers, and been actually
engaged (she said so!) to a refugee tory, who could
not (he did not!) return to keep his vows. Miss
Patty, however, bore the sad chances and changes
of this mortal life, most kindly. Her vanity, if it
had no aliment in the present, and could hope for
none in the future, was pampered by memory. She
had a good-natured, gossiping, selfish sympathy
with the world, but no love, hatred, or malice for any
individual of that world. She hoarded her patrimony,
and lived by spending the day in turn with a
large circle of affluent friends; some bound to her
by the tie of distant kindred, and others by old acquaintance.
If any of her circle fell into adversity,
Miss Patty forgot them; and why should such a fly
as Miss Patty descend the wheel, when she might as
well buzz about those who were on the top? She
was generally tolerated, and sometimes welcomed—
for she was a walking and talking chronicle—possessed
of the last information on the floating topics
of the day, and in her humble way, and to our
prosing world, she filled the place of a wandering
minstrel, or itinerant conteur.
“Glad to see you down stairs, young ladies,” she
said, as she entered the parlor. “Every body is
mourning about your sickness, Miss Clarence—parties
put off, and hearts breaking. I have come to
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spend the day with you, dear”—turning, half confidentially,
to Mrs. Layton.
“How unfortunate! Miss Patty—we are engaged
out to dine.”
“That suits me better yet—I'll sit awhile, and
run over and dine with the Porters, and spend to-morrow
with you, dear.” It was a part of Miss
Patty's tactics, to have an engagement one day
ahead. She was no philosopher in the abstract; but
what is life but a series of philosophical truths? and
Miss Patty perceived that her friend consented without
much visible reluctance, to an evil twenty-four
hours distant; and when it came, it was in the class
of inevitables, and of course, submitted to with
grace. As soon as Miss Patty had received Mrs.
Layton's bow of acquiescence in her arrangement,
she turned to the young ladies.
“Dear! how pale and thin Emilie is looking—
but it's so with all engaged ladies—I looked just so,
before the revolution.” Gertrude smiled—she could
not help it—at the revolution that must have occurred,
since Miss Patty could have resembled the
figure of her friend; as pale, certainly, and as beautiful
as the most exquisite statue. “You smile, Miss
Clarence—you don't remember—oh, no, you can't
remember—but, perhaps you never heard about my
engagement to Mr. Pinkie?”
“Bless you, Mlss Patty!” said Mrs. Layton,
eager to avert the history, “indeed she has—who
has not heard it?”
“True—true—it was pretty well known. Well,
Emmy dear, I hope you will have better luck than
I had. I believe you are one of the lucky kind;
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only think, to come out—be such a belle, and engaged
to a real nabob, before she is seventeen;
that's what I call a run of luck!”
“But the game is not finished, and the tables
may turn,” said Gertrude, with an emphasis that
sounded like a celestial prophecy to Emilie; like
treason to her mother, and very like envy to Miss
Patty.
“That is not hardly fair, Miss Gertrude,” she
said, “you have brought Emilie's color into her
cheeks, with the bare thoughts of it. Never mind,
dear, there's no war breaking out now, as in my
day, and—but here's the very person in question.”
Pedrillo entered; and while he, on the score of
not having seen Emilie for a week, was raising her
reluctant hand to his lips, Miss Patty continued to
Gertrude, her handkerchief before her face, and in
a depressed tone—“the handsomest man I have
seen since the evacuation! nothing boyish, no American
slouch—you never saw the British officers,
Miss Clarence?”
“I never had that happiness, Miss Patty.”
“Then you never saw what I call men. Mr. Pedrillo
has that same air, so erect, and finished, and
Je ne sais quoi, as the French say. Poor Mr. Pinkie
had it too—but then he was born before the revolution.
You know the Americans are very much degenerated.”
“No, I was not aware of it,” replied Gertrude,
with seeming simplicity.
“My dear!—they certainly are. The English
travellers and English reviews all say so—they tell
me—I don't read such light things—but it is my
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opinion—and I am sure I ought to be a judge, for
as Gerald Roscoe said to me once, `Miss Patty,'
said he, `you have seen a great deal of life'—you
need not smile, Miss Clarence, he did not mean
any allusion to my age—he is too much of a gentleman
for that. By the way, I met him this morning,
and told him I always laid you out for him.
`Oh, bury the thought, Miss Patty,' said he, `I
cannot enter the lists against so many—my superiors
and elders'—saucy fellow! I suppose he alluded
to Mr. Morley—but, la! what a certain sign it
is if you mention a person, he is sure to appear—
Good morning, Mr. Morley—I declare, I don't see
that you grow old at all.”
Mr. Morley, who had entered, bowed rather
coolly to the compliment, and then said to Mrs.
Layton, though his eye turned most significantly to
Gertrude, that he had just received a letter from
Washington, announcing Mr. Randolph Marion's
appointment.
Gertrude dared not look at Emilie, but she expressed
her own pleasure in the most animated terms.
Morley was delighted. “My dear Miss Clarence,”
he said in a low tone, “I am too happy to have
obliged you.”
“You have obliged me, materially, Mr. Morley,
and I am delighted to believe that you will be rewarded
for any exertions in my friend's behalf, by the consciousness
of having given the public an officer of
talent and integrity.” This was not precisely the
reward—the quid pro quo, to which Mr. Morley
looked; and this he was intimating to Miss Clarence,
in oracular phrases, which she fortunately might or
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might not understand, as suited her, when a troop
of fashionable ladies attended by Major Daisy,
Flint, and half a dozen other gentlemen, entered.
Never did the arrival of a corps de reserve prove a
more timely relief, than this to poor Emilie; who,
in a state of nervous agitation, was giving all her
thoughts to Marion's rising fortune; and trying to
avert her treacherous cheek from Pedrillo, and
close her ear against the ardent language that he
was addressing to her, whlie he appeared to be carelessly
playing with a fire-screen.
The usual formula of morning chit-chat was run
over; that mystery of mysteries eagerly inquired
into, “how did you take such a sad cold?”—all
the changes rung upon the weather---`it had been
very damp'---`it was very fine'---`nothing more capricious
than the weather'---`Mrs. L. had a delightful
party'---`Mrs. K.'s was very dull'---`none of the
L.'s there, on account of the old gentleman's death,
charming old man he was, pity he had not lived a
few days longer.'
A knot of ladies, bold aspirants to the reputation
of fine women, were announcing their opinion of a
new poem, and the last novel. “Is the Corsair a
favorite of yours?” “Oh!” replied the sapient
young lady, to whom the inquiry was addressed,
“Oh, I doat on it---was there ever such a sweet
creature as Conrad?”
“No,” said another lady, in answer to an innocent
query, “I never read American novels, there's
no high life in them.”
The scene was constantly shifting, or rather the
actors made their exits, and new ones appeared.
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The servant stood with the door half open, “Miss
Clarence, you feel the draught, shut the door John,”
said our attentive friend Flint. John bowed respectfully,
but did not move, and the reason of his deferred
obedience was presently explained by voices,
from the entry, breaking from a whisper into a gentle
altercation. “Indeed, Mr. Roscoe, you must
come in—it cannot be impossible.”
“I would trample on impossibilities at your bidding,
Miss Mayo, but—”
The rest of the sentence was intercepted by an
exclamation from Flint—“I declare, there's my
friend Roscoe; I promised, ten days ago, Miss Clarence,
to introduce him to you,” and before Gertrude
could interpose a word, he darted off to force
his patronage on Roscoe. A more potent voice was
now raised, “Come in, Mr. Gerald Roscoe,” said
Mrs. Layton, “as lady of the manor, and entitled
to all waifs and strays, I command you to come in,”
and Roscoe, preceded by two ladies, who, if they
had been a trio, might have been mistaken for the
graces in Parisian costume, entered the parlor.
Mrs. Layton rose to receive them with something
very different in her manner, from the mechanical politeness
she addressed to ordinary guests. “For
shame, Mr. Roscoe!” she said, “you, unfettered, unbound,
and not half so old as the vagrant Greek, to
resist the presence, as well as the voice of the syrens;
and such syrens,” she added, casting an admiring
look at the elegant young ladies before her.
“I did not resist the voice of the syren,” replied
Roscoe, in a tone so depressed, as to be audible
only to Mrs. Layton's, and one other ear—strange
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power of love! Gertrude sat at some distance from
Mrs. Layton; her satellites, Morley and Daisy,
stood before her. Morley was pouring out diplomatic
compliments, fraught with meaning, but they
were all lost on her. She was conscious of but one
presence. From the first moment Roscoe's voice
had reached her, she felt a stifling sensation—her
heart beat almost audibly, and her first impulse was
to run out of the room, but propriety, dignity, forbade.
`If I betray any emotion,' she thought, `I
shall hate myself—I shall be for ever degraded in his
eyes—I cannot support an introduction to him in
broad day-light, before all these persons—blockaded
too by `Morley, Daisy, & Co.'—how contemptible
he will think my mystery!—why did not I
tell him when we last met?—can this horrid suffocating
feeling be faintness?—how ridiculous!—how
disgraceful!”
“Bless me!” exclaimed Flint, who had returned
to Miss Clarence' side, “how excessively pale you
look!” Gertrude's alarm was augmented by this
exclamation. She made no reply, but kept her eyes
rivetted to the floor. “She's certainly faint,” interrupted
Flint, “Ladies, allow me to raise this window.”
He made a bustling effort to effect this purpose.
“What is the matter?” asked half a dozen voices.
“Miss Clarence is faint,” was the reply.
“Indeed I am not,” said Gertrude, summoning
all her energy to shelter and suppress a momentary
weakness, and stimulated by the danger of exposing
to Roscoe, an emotion as flattering to him, as humbling
to herself; “indeed I am not in the least faint,
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I never fainted in my life—pray close that window.
You are very good, Mr. Flint, but you made a
strange mistake.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Clarence,” replied
Mr. Flint, with well founded pertinacity, “I don't
think I mistook at all. Persons are not always conscious
when they are going to faint—you were certainly
deathly pale, and I'm pretty sure you breathed
short—at any rate, your color came with the first
breath of fresh air.”
`What odious details,' thought Gertrude, shrinking
from the exposure of these particulars; and with
a feeling of a doubtful shade, between spirit and
temper, she replied, “you must really, Mr. Flint, allow
me to judge of my own sensations.” She was
nerved by the courageous sound of her own voice,
and she ventured to cast one rapid glance around
the room in quest of Roscoe. He had disappeared.
`Had he seen her?' She did not know, and dared
not ask.
“Your alarm, Mr. Flint, was mal-apropos,” said
Miss Mayo, the eldest of the sisters who had entered
with Roscoe. “I was, just at the moment of your
frightful exclamations, going to present a friend to
Miss Clarence—he disappeared while we were all
looking at you, Miss Clarence—Mr. Roscoe, the
cleverest young man in New York.” Miss Mayo
spoke unadvisedly. She did not dream that she
could encroach on the self-estimation of any one present;
but John Smith and Major Daisy, echoing
her last words, `the cleverest!' in a tone of unfeigned
surprise, taught her the indefinite extent of the
boundary-lines of vanity.
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“Yes,” said Miss Patty Sprague, “Miss Mayo
is right. I heard the chancellor say, myself, that
Gerald Roscoe would be at the head of his profession,
in a few years; and I am right glad of it—it
is pleasant to see good luck happen to such a genteel
family as the Roscoes—I have spent many a
pleasant day in his father's house.”
“Do you ever spend the day, Miss Patty,” asked
Mrs. Layton, “with Mrs. Roscoe?”
“No,” replied Miss Patty, with a deep sigh,
“since she gave up her house, I have somehow lost
sight of her.”
“Miss Patty's vision, I should imagine, was too
imperfect for the dim light of obscured fortunes,”
said Gertrude in an under voice to Miss Mayo.
“Yes, but just observe with what an eagle-eye
she can look at an ascending luminary.—Do you
know, Miss Patty, that Mrs. Spencer is going to
bring out her pretty daughter, and has sent out
invitations for an immense party?”
“La! yes, dear, I heard so—a charming, intelligent
woman, Mrs. Spencer. I have not been there
since Mr. Spencer's failure—I am truly glad they
have got up in the world again—I wish, dear, some
day when it's convenient, you would give me a cast
in your carriage—I should so like to spend a day
with them.”
“I will certainly remember you, Miss Patty,”
replied Miss Mayo, with an unequivocal smile.
“By the way, Mrs. Layton, you have invitations of
course to the Spencers; do you go?”
“Really, I threw the notes aside, and have not
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thought about it. There will be nothing distingué
there, I fancy.—no especial attraction?”
“No; it will be like other parties: tea-parties
are, as Madame de Staêl has said, “une habile invention
de la médiocrité pour annuller les facultés de
l'esprit.” But as you sometimes submit to the levelling
invention, I wish particularly that you would
go to Mrs. Spencer's.
“And why?”
“Because, she has a very accomplished daughter,
she wishes to bring out.”
“Heavens! my dear Miss Mayo, so have fifty
other mothers, to whom we should not think of doing
such a neighborly office, as helping out their daughters;
but Daisy shall decide—he is my oracle. How
is it Major Daisy, are those Spencers genteel?”
For once, Major Daisy was at fault. “Really,
Mrs. Layton, I cannot say—I am at a loss; but if
you, and the ladies will go, I, and some of my friends,
will form a phalanx around you; and we can be
quite by osurelves, you know.”
“Upon my word,” said Mr. John Smith, “I
think the ladies does make a mistake, if they go.
My father says, he thinks it's time for us to take a
stand: He don't think the Spencers visitable.”
Miss Patty peered over her spectacles at John
Smith; and laying her hand on Daisy's arm, she
whispered, “Is not that a son of Sam Smith, that
drove a hackney coach, when he first came to New
York?”
“Yes—it's natural he should be on the alert, you
know, Miss Patty, about taking a stand?”
Miss Patty did not take the pun; and while Daisy
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was regretting he had wasted it on her, she continued—
for her indignation was touched, where
alone it was vulnerable; “Visitable indeed! The
Spencers visitable? I wonder if Mr. Spencer's father
did not live in Hanover square, and ride in his
coach; (and many a time have I rode up to St.
Paul's in it. St. Paul's was then quite out of town;)
when this young fellow's mother, Judy Brown that
was, used to go out dress-making—the visitable people
to her, were those that paid her day's wages
punctually.”
“Well,” resumed John Smith, unsuspicious of
Miss Patty's vituperation; for he had walked to
the window, and was reconnoitering the street,
through his eye glass; “Well, if the ladies persists
in going, I shall attend them; though I have written
my note, and sealed it with the mushroom seal, and
`where were you yesterday?' I always use that seal
for such sort of people—It's very clever to have appropriated
seals; is not it, Miss Mayo?”
“Extremely, Mr. Smith,—the mushroom is the
élite of seals for you.”
Mr. Smith could not even guess what élite meant;
but vanity—blessed interpreter! told him it meant
something flattering; and he bowed most gratefully
to Miss Mayo.
Mr. Flint had been hitherto silent. Unversed in
the complicated machinery of gentility, he was too
honest, and too good natured, for affectation on the
subject; but, impatient for the result, he demanded
of Miss Clarence, `what she meant to do about going;
for,' he said, `if she went he would contrive
to get an invitation.'
“Oh!” replied Miss Clarence, who had caught
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from Miss Mayo, some interest in the success of Mrs.
Spencer's party, “I shall certainly go, provided”—
“Provided Mrs. Layton goes,” said that lady;
anticipating Miss Clarence' conclusion, “assuredly,
my dear Gertrude, we shall all say `ditto to-Mr.
Burke'—shall we not gentlemen?” The gentlemen
smiled, and bowed their assent. “We are quite safe
in going—our distinguished selves out of the question,
it is quite enough to say of any party `the
Mayos were there,' their presence is fashion. I perceived
you were predetermined to sanction Mrs.
Spencer, were you not, Miss Mayo?”
“To accept her invitation, I was, Mrs. Layton;
and had made Gerald Roscoe promise to accompany
me.”
“What a triumph! Roscoe has avoided all parties,
this winter.”
“Yes, Mrs. Layton, and does not every man of
special cleverness, after a winter or two?—however,
I rallied him unmercifully, upon turning recluse, in
New York; and fancying, on the pavé of Broadway,
that he was walking in the groves of Academus:
whereupon, he very graciously said, I reminded him
that Plato had placed a statue of Love at the entrance
of those groves; and, he added, with his usual gallantry,
that he was now perfectly aware, no man could
enjoy their seclusion, in peace, till he had rendered
homage to the divinity. A pretty compliment to
the absolute power of the sex—was it not, Miss Clarence?
bless me! you blush as if it were personal;
that blush is prophetic! I shall tell my friend Gerald
Roscoe—no protestations; good morning—we shall
all meet at the Spencers.”
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“What a pity!” exclaimed John Smith, as the
door closed after her, “that Miss Mayo should be
such a blue.”
“Do you remember, Mr. Smith,” asked Mrs.
Layton, “the reply of Pitt, to the King, when he
said General Wolf was mad?”
“No, madam, I can't say I do, in particular.”
“`Would to God he would bite some of your majesty's
ministers!' It would,” continued Mrs. Layton,
without regarding the smile of inanity, with
which Smith received the witticism, “it would be
an infinite relief to the insipidity of fashionable society,
if the persons who constitute it, were generally
infected with Miss Mayo's zeal for mental accomplishments;
but then, one does so shrink from the
danger of being called a blue, when one sees, as in
Miss Mayo's case, that even youth, beauty, and fashion,
cannot save one from the odious appellation.
“As the appellation only suits pretenders,” said
Miss Clarence, “and is for the most part only bestowed
by spiteful ignorance, I cannot imagine that
it should require much courage, even in a fashionable
young lady, to emulate Miss Mayo's example,
and devote her leisure hours to those pursuits that
enrich the mind, and extend a woman's civil existence
beyond the short reign of youth and beauty.”
“Ah, Miss Clarence,” said Mr. Morley, “the
blues will win the field, if you become their champion.”
“Lord!” said John Smith to Major Daisy, in a
sort of parenthetical whisper, “is Miss Clarence a
blue?—I never heard her talk about books.”
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Major Daisy could not reply, for he was listening
to find out.
“If I were fit to be a champion, Mr. Morley,”
replied Miss Clarence, modestly, “I would lay the
phantom army of blues, that is conjured up to terrify
young ladies from their books, and repel very ignorant
and very young gentlemen from all cultivated
young women.”
“There!” whispered Mr. Smith, with infinite satisfaction,
“I knew she was not a blue!” Daisy was
silent, a little doubtful and fearful. Flint, who had
an innate and homebread reverence for whatever was
intellectual and cultivated, rubbed his hands in expressive
ecstasy. Mr. Morley thought, in the quiet
recesses of his soul, that it would be a great advantage
to have such an intelligent person as Miss Clarence
to conduct the education of his daughters; and
all took their leave, satisfied that Miss Clarence had
a right to be, and could afford to be—even a blue,
if she pleased.
All had now departed—even Pedrillo, who had
lingered through the whole morning, to enjoy the
despotic pleasure of manifesting his right to monopolize
Emilie. Her languid and abstracted manner
indicated, and made him feel to his heart's core, that
whatever external observance she might render, he
could never bind or touch her affections—their ethereal
essence was beyond his, or even her control.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Layton, as
the door closed on the last visiter, “we are released
at last. What is so tiresome, Gertrude, as morning
visits?”
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“A common-place from your lips, Mrs. Layton!”
“Yes, it is common-place—every body detests
them; and yet what is one to do? We must not
undertake to be wiser than our generation. It is
Molière, is it not, who says there is no folly equal
to that of attempting to reform the world?
`C'est une folíe a nulle autre seconde,
`De vouloir se méler de corriger le monde.”'
“Molière is perhaps right, Mrs. Layton; and it
may be presumptuous, as well as foolish, to crusade
against the follies of others; but it seems, to me at
least, an equal folly in ourselves, to conform to a
custom which you confess to be `tiresome,' and
which is certainly wrong.”
“Tiresome, I grant you, but how wrong?”
“Obviously because it consumes the best hours of
the day, and coerces, by the tyranny of custom, those
who have it in their power to select their own occupations.”
“Miséricorde, Gertrude! you are sometimes a
little new. Do you really imagine that these trumpery
women who constitute the majority of morning
visiters, could be induced to make any rational use
of time? Time, my dear child, is like those coins
that have no intrinsic worth, but are valued according
to the impress put upon them.”
Gertrude had too clear a head to be confounded
by a simile. “Then certainly,” she replied, “it
should not pass without any impression. But do not
think me so very new, Mrs. Layton: I would only
ask that you, and those who think like you, would
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abandon a custom which you confess to be ennuyant
to those who really like it, and may therefore support
it without your glaring inconsistency.”
“This is all very sage and very virtuous, Gertrude;
but really, my dear friend, when you know
a little more of the world as it is, you will relinquish
the beau-ideal of a world as it should be. I have
quite too humble an opinion of myself, to aspire to
turn the current of society from its well-worn channels.
I might, as you suggest, institute a sort of
hermitage in the midst of the world; but what is an
individual separated from the mass—an insignificant
drop of water from the great ocean?”
Gertrude smiled at the ridiculous light in which
Mrs. Layton had placed her suggestion; and she
smiled, and sighed too, as she (assenting to it) mentally
repeated Moilere's couplet. “My dear Gertrude,
is that sigh heaved for your poor friend, or
for the wicked world at large? In either case it is
not wasted, for we have both enough of sins and
sorrows to sigh over. But you are in too melancholy
a vein to-day—you are not well. Apropos,
you were really faint this morning?”
“Slightly so for a moment.”
“And so you `moralized the spectacle'—Ah, well,
that is natural. To tell you the honest truth, you and
Emilie both look like nuns just from a cloister—your
imagination filled with death-heads. Let me send
for a carriage. It is but two o'clock—you can ride
for a couple of hours, before it is time to dress for
dinner.”
The young ladies assented, glad of an opportunity
of being together, without the fear of interruption.
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CHAPTER X.
“C'est trop d'etre coquette et devote—une femme devrait opter.”
La Bruyere.
[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]
Emilie's spirits were stimulated by the recent
information of Marion's good fortune; and as soon
as the two friends were fairly in the carriage, and
away from the door, she said, “Is not this delightful
news of Marion? Of course it's nothing to me—
it can be nothing; but it would be very strange
if I did not feel it.”
“Very strange, Emilie.”
“You smile, Gertrude, and well you may, for it
is very odd that any thing can make me happy, even
for a moment; but I feel this morning as if, in spite
of fate, there were some good in store for me.”
Gertrude, far from repressing, cherished, and
strengthened the happy presentiments of Emilie's
innocent mind. And she had a right to do so, for
hers was not the common, easy, and half-selfish sympathy
with happiness. She was conscious of a plan,
and a determined resolution, if possible, to extricate
her friend from her unhappy engagement, and being
perhaps unwarrantably sanguine in her hope of
success, she felt as if Emilie's elation were a premonition
of coming happiness. Alas! how often
are wishes mistaken for premonitions! How often
the destructive storm is gathering, when the skies
are brightest and clearest to mortal vision!
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“Emilie,” said Gertrude, “is not Marion, now
that he has it in his power to secure to you independence,
is he not bound as a true knight—a truelove,
to ascertain how far you consider your obligations
to Pedrillo sacred?
“He has had no opportunity to do so—perhaps,
Gertrude, you do not think Randolph still cares for
me?”
“I believe he does—I do not see how any one
can help caring for you—loving you tenderly, Emilie;
but I want his assurance, in case—”
“In case of what?—do speak, Gertrude.”
“Perhaps I have already spoken too much. In
case we need his co-operation: Now, Emilie, you
must not, positively, ask me any thing further.”
“I will not, dear Gertrude—I will obey you in
every thing. It is very strange that Randolph has
not made an effort to see me—that he has not written
to me, if he could not see me; yet, I am sure
all is right with him. How could he have any
hope, when he knows I am to be married, and so
soon, to Mr. Pedrillo—how can there possibly,” she
added, relapsing into her tone of despondency—
“how can there possibly be any hope?”
“Oh Emilie, `if he dare not hope, he does not
love;' but here we are coming to the place where I
saw the beautiful engraving I promised your mother.”
She ordered the coachman to stop. The ladies
alighted, and entered a fashionable bookstore,
to which was attached a show-room for paintings,
prints, and other productions of the arts. A gentleman
was standing at the counter, tossing over
some books; his attention was attracted by their
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entrance; he turned his face towards them, and instantly
it brightened with the pléasure of recognition,
and was answered by, at least, an equal animation
from Emilie's eyes. It was Marion. He advanced
to them. “My dear Miss Clarence,” he
whispered to Gertrude, “allow me five minutes
conversation with Miss Layton.”
“There are some new songs, Emilie,” said Gertrude,
adroitly favoring the request; “you may look
them over, while I am selecting the prints;” and
passing into the inner room, she endeavored to monopolize
the attention of the only clerk in waiting.
Her effort was successful—he was too much engrossed
with his ready sales to his liberal customer, to
listen to the low energetic tones of Marion, or to
Emilie's soft tremulous replies. The words escaped
Gertrude's ear, but the murmuring sounds were as
intelligible as the most expressive notes of a tender
song. `Their loves must not be thwarted,' she
thought, as she wiped the gathering tears from her
eyes, `they shall have all my efforts—all my
thoughts!' Ah, Gertrude, why that sudden flush?
why is that eye so suddenly turned, cast down, and
raised again? and where are those thoughts that
were to be all given to the loves of your friends?
The shop-door had again been opened, and
Gertrude, dreading some impertinent interruption,
had turned her eye fearfully to Emilie. She encountered
Roscoe's sparkling glance. She was
abashed and agitated; she longed, yet dreaded to
know, whether he had seen her at Mrs. Layton's;
she feared to learn from his words, or looks, that he
suspected the secret reason of her mystery, and she
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hoped to pass it off as her sportive concurrence with
accident. These, and other thoughts, too rapid and
disjointed, to be defined, flashed, like meteors,
athwart her mind, and communicated embarrassment
to her face and manner, while Roscoe was advancing
towards her. Fortunately, all embarrassment
is not awkward. There is a charm in the
timid eye, the varying cheek, the softness and sensibility
of the faltering voice, that the self-possession,
the `loveless wisdom' of maidenly pride, may disdain,
but can never equal.
Gertrude had never appeared so interesting to
Roscoe, as at this moment. And why? Nothing
could seem less affecting, than their present uncircumstanced
encounter in a print-shop. All
their other meetings had occurred when her feelings
were strongly excited; but the exciting cause
was obviously independent of him. He now perceived—
no, not perceived, but hoped—faintly hoped
it may be, for he had not a particle of coxcombry,
but he did distinctly hope that her too visible
emotion, proceeded from a sentiment responding to
that which had most insidiously interwoven itself in
his affections and anticipations. True love, even
when far more assured than Roscoe's, is always unpresuming,
and never had he addressed her in so reserved
and deferential a manner, as at this moment.
`He certainly knows me'—thought she—`it is
just as I expected—what an utter change!' But
Roscoe had not seen her at Mrs. Layton's—had not
yet identified the lady of his thoughts, with the
shunned heiress—the elect of his heart, nameless and
unknown, with the daughter of his benefactor and
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friend. Of this she was assured, by his quickly resuming
his customary, frank, and easy tone.
“To whom shall I make out the bill, Miss?” asked
the shop-boy, who, since Roscoe had withdrawn
his customer's attention, had lost all hope of swelling
its amount. Gertrude was at the moment, listening
to a criticism of Roscoe, on a fine engraving
of Guido's Sybil, and looking him full in the face.
He smiled at the interrogatory, and so archly, that
in spite of her tremulous fears, she smiled in return.
“Poor, simple youth!” said Roscoe in a low voice,
“if he gets a satisfactory answer to that question,
we will set him to find out the man in the iron mask,
or the author of Junius' Letters.”
“I did not hear the name, Miss,” said the clerk,
confounded by the murmur of Roscoe's voice, and
uncertain whether the lady had replied.
“You need not trouble yourself to make out a
bill,” replied Gertrude; “just give me the amount.”
“Admirable!” exclaimed Roscoe; “so natural,
and easy, and successful a reply!”
“At this stage of our acquaintance,” replied Gertrude,
in the same tone of raillery in which he had
spoken, “I am too much pleased with the success of
my riddle, voluntarily to tell it; and I assure you
I shall tax my ingenuity to co-operate with kind
chance. I confess I am a little surprised that your
sagacity has not sooner outwitted both.”
“My sagacity! The solution would truly have
been the achievement of pure sagacity, since chance
is as obedient to your wishes as the `dainty spirits'
of Prospero to his; and you know it is `in the bond'
that I ask no questions.”
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Gertrude hesitated for a moment in her reply.
She began to be herself impatient of the mystery—
to feel it to be onerous, and to fear that it was silly.
“I withdraw that condition,” she said; “if we meet
again, I permit you to ask what questions you please—
but not now,” she added, shrinking from the awkward
moment of disclosure.
Roscoe bowed, and expressed his thanks, with a
little faltering, and a great deal of animation, and
concluded by saying, “if the fortunate moment ever
comes, of a satisfactory reply to my questions, do
not be offended if I am as extravagant in my demonstrations
of joy, as Archimedes was when he rushed
from the bath, exclaiming, “I've found it—I've
found it.”
Gertrude received certain intimations from her
throbbing heart, that they were dwelling too long
on a too interesting topic, and she rather abruptly
turned the conversation to some new prints lying on
the counter. The attentive clerk was induced, by
the expression of her admiration, to display the
treasures of his shop. He produced a collection of
rare coins and medals, imported for one of the few
antiquaries of our country, and a fine set of impressions
of Canova's chef d'œuvres. Here were fertile
themes of conversation, and Roscoe, for the first
time, had an opportunity of eliciting the various
knowledge with which Gertrude's mind was enriched.
In examining the medals, references to history
were unavoidable. Without haranguing like a magnificent
Corinne, she gracefully recurred to traits of
character, and such circumstances illustrative of
those traits, as were impressed on her clear and
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accurate memory. In looking over the prints, her
susceptible imagination, alive to all the forms and
combinations of beauty, her cultivated taste and nice
observation were manifested spontaneously, without
effort, and without constraint; and Roscoe enjoyed
the rare pleasure that results from congeniality of
taste, and similarity of culture. His own mind was
enriched with those elegant acquisitions, that are regarded
for a professional man in our `working-day
world,' rather embellishments than necessaries. But
are they so? And when the `working-day' is past,
and affluence and leisure attained, are there not
many who ruefully exclaim; with Sir Andrew Aguecheek,
`Oh that I had followed the arts!'
Never were tête-à-têtes less likely to be voluntarily
broken off, than those of the parties in the book-seller's
shop. Gertrude was however aware of the
propriety of withdrawing, and she looked anxiously
at Emilie, who was still bending over the music with
Marion, as if they were conning a lesson together.
Roscoe's eyes followed the direction of Miss Clarence'.
“Are those persons known to you?” he
asked.
“Yes, the lady is my companion,” replied Gertrude,
secretly rejoicing that Emilie was so concealed
by the large cloak and hood in which she was
muffled, that Roscoe had not recognised her; “I
must remind her that it is quite time for us to go.”
“Oh no—do not; the common instincts of humanity
should protect a conversation so interesting
as that from interruption; and besides,” he added,
his ready ingenuity hitting on this device to prolong
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their interview, “I was just going to have the boldness
to ask you to accompany me to the Methodist
chapel in John-street. I do not wonder that you
smile at the singular proposition—you perhaps have
not heard Mr. Summerfield?”
“No, but I have heard much of him as a most
eloquent preacher.”
“And wish to hear him, do you not? All ladies
follow after eloquent preachers; even my mother,
the most regular church-going woman in the bishop's
diocess—the most rational of women, has gone with
the crowd to-day, and it will not lessen my unbounded
respect for one other of the sex, if she too joins
the multitude. You can return in a short time, and
it may be, strange as it may seem, that your friend
will not miss you.”
Gertrude was really anxious to hear the celebrated
preacher in quession, and was probably more influenced
than she was herself aware of, by the desire to
remain near to Roscoe; and going up to Emilie,
she whispered, cautioned her not to prolong her
stay imprudently, said she had a little farther to go,
and that she would leave the carriage for her, and
walk home herself. Emilie readily assented to any
arrangement to protract a pleasure that might never
be repeated, and Gertrude and Roscoe proceeded to
the chapel, which they found filled to overflowing.
Pews, aisles, windows, the porch-steps, were crowded;
and even the outer persons of this immense
concourse were in that hushed and listening attitude,
that shows what a potent spell one mind can
cast over thousands.
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There is a certain deference, of boasted equality,
and on the level arena of a church, even in our
country, paid to the superiority of personal appearance.
One and another gave way a little, a very
little, at Roscoe's approach; so that after a few
moments of patient perseverance, Gertrude found
herself at the entrance of the middle-aisle. The
first face she recognised, the first eye she encountered,
were those of our ubiquitous friend Flint. He nodded
familiarly to her. Being himself ensconced at the
upper end of a pew, and hemmed in by a file of ladies,
he could not offer his seat, he however, contrived
to signify to one of the volunteer masters of
ceremonies, that there was a vacant seat in a distant
pew, to which the lady, to whom he directed
his attention, might be conducted. The man offered
his services, and Gertrude accepted, simply from the
consciousness, that the precise place she occupied,
was just at that moment, the most attractive in the
world; and Roscoe saw her conducted away from
him, with the same sort of vexed disappointment,
with which a lover awakes from his dreams, at the
moment, when after infinite pains, he has secured
proximity to his mistress.
The preacher was young, handsome, and graceful,
with a delicious voice, skillfully modulated, and
expressive of the tenderness of a seraphic spirit.
He presented the most appalling truths to his hearers,
and enforced them by an address to their strongest
passions—love, and fear. His youth might have
seemed to want authority to set forth the terrors of
the law, had not his emaciated figure, and hectic
cheek indicated that his spirit was on the verge of
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the unseen world, and fulfilling a celestial commission,
and a last duty.
It was not because Gertrude's religious sentiments
did not precisely accord with the preacher's, that he
failed to interest her. She was not one of those
cold and conceited listeners, who criticise when they
should feel. Her affections could warm at another's
altar, though the fire there was not kindled
by the same process that had lighted the sacred
flame on her own; and finally, if she was not
moved by the popular preacher, it was not from the
remotest similarity to the old woman who could
only cry in her own parish. If, as Dr. Franklin
relates, a poor octogenarian who had been immured
for years in her own apartment, employed a
confessor to shrive her “vain thoughts,” our heroine,
just in the uncertain budding time of her sweet
hopes, must be forgiven for her truant fancies.
But if she was unmoved, there was a lady at her
side almost convulsed by the picture of the final
retribution which the preacher presented. She
was cloaked, and veiled, and kept her head reclining
on the front of the pew. Her tears fell like raindrops
into her lap. Gertrude suspected she knew
her. `Can it be!' she thought—she kept her eye
steadfastly fixed on her. Her curiosity, and a better
feeling than curiosity was awakened. The lady
drew off her glove. If Gertrude had been at a
loss to recognise the beautiful hand thus exposed,
she could not mistake the rich and rare rings, that
identified Mrs. Layton's.
Gertrude's first impulse was to press that hand in
hers, in token of her sympathy with the gracious
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feelings awakened; but she was checked by the
studious concealment of Mrs. Layton's attitude, and
by the fear, that the consciousness of her observation
might check the tide of religious thought,
which she hoped, like a swollen torrent, would
sweep away accumulated rubbish, and leave a fertilized
and productive soil. But Gertrude's benevolent
hope had a frail foundation.
The agitation of Mrs. Layton's mind, was not
the healthful strife of the elements, that leaves a
purified atmosphere, but the storm of a tropical region,
that marks its track by waste and desolation.
Her religion, (if it be not sacrilege, so to apply
that sacred name,) was a transient emotion—a passing
fervor—a gush of passion, that if it did not lull
the cravings of her immortal nature, or still the reproaches
of conscience, for a time, at least, overwhelmed
them.
Gertrude, in the simplicity of her heart, believed
a moral renovation was begun, and already with
the sanguine expectation of youth, was counting on
its natural fruits, in the mother's zealous co-operation
in her daughter's cause, when she was awakened
from her reverie, by the close of the service.
She eagerly hastened forward to escape Mrs. Layton's
notice, and was soon lost in the crowd, from
which she disengaged herself and reached home,
without again encountering Roscoe, who was lingering
and looking for her.
She found Emilie at home, impatiently awaiting
her; her cheek was flushed, and her face was radiant.
Her air, her step, her voice, her whole being,
seemed changed. The inevitable duties of the
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toilet were to be performed, preparatory to dinner, and
the time of grace was short; but short as it was,
Emilie found opportunity to communicate the substance
of her interview with Marion. He still loved
her, truly, devotedly. “And it was from a letter
of yours to his sister, Gertrude, which he says, she
had not the heart to keep from him, that he learned
the true state of the case, that I had never trifled
with his feelings, that I was forced into this odious
engagement, and that you believed I loved him—
you should not have told that, Gertrude; however,
it is past, and can't be helped now—and that I should
be miserable with Pedrillo—that, I'm sure you
might say to any body. Randolph came post to
New York, and had not been a half hour in the
city, when he accidentally heard we were all at the
Athenæum, thither he went to meet us. He has
since repeatedly called, and never been admitted—
he has written to me, and his letters have been enclosed
to him, un-opened.”
“I have conjectured all this before, Emilie; but
what is to come of this interview?”
“Oh! Heaven knows—dear Gertrude; bless
you—bless you for writing that letter.”
What was to come of it, in Emilie's hope, was
plain enough from her benediction. Gertrude
shook her head, and said, with a gravity half-real,
half-affected, “I was afraid I was at the bottom
of this mischief, but I have done what I could to
repair it.”
“Oh Gertrude!” exclaimed Emilie, mistaking her
friend's meaning, “then you told mama?—you advised
her to return the letters?”
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“Emilie!”
“Emilie did not quite comprehend the tone of
Gertrude's exclamation. “I am not offended,” she
said—“I cannot be offended with you. I dare say
you thought it was right, or you would not have
done it; and as you never was in love, dear Gertrude,
you know, you cannot possibly tell what a trial
it is.”
Gertrude, not thinking an éclaircissement at this
moment, very important, proceeded to ask Emilie
`if Marion had proposed any thing?'
“Yes, he has, he intreats me—but perhaps,
Gertrude, you will think it your duty to tell mama?”
“Nothing you trust me with, Emilie.”
“Oh, do not think I doubt you. It is only when
I am not quite sure we think exactly alike about
what is right, and I judge from my feelings, you
know, and therefore, I am very liable to go
wrong.”
“Never—never Emilie, while they remain so
pure and unperverted—but tell me, what did Marion
propose?—an elopement, a clandestine marriage?”
“Yes.”
“I am glad of it.”
“Emilie threw her arms around Gertrude's neck,
“are you, Gertrude?—do you think it is right?—
do you think I may consent?”
Gertrude looked in her eager face with a smile,
and replied playfully in the words of the Scotch
song:
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“Come counsel, dear Tittie, don't tarry,
I'll gie you my bonnie black hen,
Gif ye will advise me to marry
The lad I lo'e dearly”—
Dear Emilie, that advice may yet come from my
lips, as it springs from my heart at this moment.
But a clandestine marriage must be the last resort.
We must first see whether your father will not release
you from the engagement he has made with
Pedrillo.”
“He never will—never, Gertrude.”
“We will see—and if he will not, why then—
but here is Justine, to tell us the carriage
is waiting. Keep up your spirits, Emilie, and according
to the good old fashioned rule, `hope for
the best, and be prepared for the worst'—the worst
shall not come to you, if human effort can avert it.”
Mrs. Layton and Pedrillo were awaiting the
young ladies in the parlor. Mrs. Layton showed
no traces of the morning's emotions excepting an
unusual languor, and a deeper tinge of rouge than
usual. Emilie never had appeared more dazzlingly
beautiful. Pedrillo siezed her hand with rapture;
“God bless me, Miss Emilie,” he said, “your ride
has wrought miracles. No rose was ever brighter
and fresher than the color on your cheek. Miss
Layton,” he added in a lower tone, “this week is to
fulfil my hopes.”
“This week!” she echoed, and her boasted color
faded to the faintest hue. Nothing farther passed.
He handed her to the carriage, und she was compelled
to endure, with an aching, and anxious heart,
for the remainder of the evening, the stately ceremonies
of a formal dinner-party.
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CHAPTER XI.
“I had rather be married to a death's head, with a bone in his
mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these.”
Merchant of Venice.
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The Penates seldom smile on the breakfast-meal
in the happiest families, and where no sacrifices are
made to the domestic deities, it is a gloomy gathering
enough. On the morning succeeding the dinner-party—
dates begin to assume an importance as
we draw to the close of our history—Mr. Layton was
in his murkiest humor. He did not even, as usual,
vent his ill temper on the poor servant in waiting—
the common safety-valve of effervescing humors.
The cold coffee, the heavy cakes, the missing butter-knife,
all were unnoticed. Twice he rose, and
it seemed unconsciously, from the breakfast-table—
strode up and down the room—paused behind Emilie's
chair—patted her head—then turned abruptly
away to hide a starting tear—seized the morning
paper, sat down by the window, and affected to be
reading it. Emilie, whose agitated spirits were
ready to take alarm, thought her father's manner
portended evil to her; and when he said, “My
child, your mother wishes to speak with you as soon
as you have finished your breakfast,” she turned
pale, rose from her untasted coffee, and left the
room. Gertude would have followed, but Mr.
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Layton arrested her by a request that she would allow
him to speak with her in the library.
Layton's affairs with Pedrillo had come to a fearful
crisis. Pedrillo had been excessively irritated by
being for ten days denied all access to Emilie; and on
the preceding morning, (of which we have given the
details,) he had been exasperated by her manifest
aversion to him, and by the emotion she had betrayed
at the mention of Marion. He was farther
outraged by some well meant attempts of Flint to be
witty on the precariousness of love affairs; and these
little irritations swelled the measure of his impatience,
already full, to overflowing. When he met
Layton, the passion that had been curbed by the
restraints of good-breeding, was expressed without
qualification. He insisted on the immediate performance
of Layton's contract, and threatened, in
case of any further delay, the enforcement of his pecuniary
claims, and, what Layton dreaded far
more, the disclosure of the fraud he had practised
at the gaming-table. Layton was desperate, and
promised whatever Pedrillo required.
“Miss Clarence,” said Layton, when he had
closed the library-door, and after two or three embarrassing
hems! “Miss Clarence, I find it excessively
awkward to make a request of you, which always
comes with a bad grace from a gentleman to a
lady, and from me to my guest may appear particularly
indelicate. However, I am perfectly aware such
fastidiousness is out of place in relation to you, and
though I am really oppressed and mortified by the
necessity of asking”—
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“I beg, Mr. Layton,” replied Gertrude, compassionating
his embarrassment, “that you will consider
my being your guest merely as a circumstance
that gives me a facility in serving you.”
“You are very good, Miss Clarence, very kind;
but it is so difficult to explain to a lady the little pecuniary
embarrassments to which gentlemen are liable,
that it is humiliating to confess them. However,
your goodness overcomes my scruples; and frankly,
my dear Miss Clarence, I am in pressing want of a
thousand dollars. Can you oblige me by advancing
it?”
Gertrude hesitated for a moment; but her plans
and resolutions were formed, and not to be lightly
shaken. “I am awaiting, Mr. Layton,” she replid,
“a letter from my father, which will contain
some instructions in relation to my pecuniary concerns,
and till I hear from him, I cannot dispose of
so large a sum.”
“But, my dear madam—my dear Miss Clarence,
you misunderstand me—dispose! bless me!—I ask
only the loan for a very few days.”
“So I understand, Mr. Layton.”
“And you refuse!—I confess I did not anticipate
this; a thousand dollars is a small item of your
splendid fortune, Miss Clarence. Would to God I
had been endowed with one particle of your admirable
prudence!” Though Layton did not quite
lose his customary good-breeding, he spoke in a
tone of bitter sarcasm that wounded Gertrude to the
heart, for she utterly disdained every sordid consideration.
She was not however betrayed into any
apparent relenting, and he proceeded: “I was
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perfectly aware that I had no claims, Miss Clarence,
but I imagined you might be willing to risk a small sacrifice
for the husband and father of friends whom
you profess to love.”
“I am perfectly aware of all the motives that
exist for granting your request, Mr. Layton, and I
resist them in very difficult compliance with what I
believe to be my duty.”
“Duty!—a harsh ungraceful word on a young
lady's lips, Miss Clarence. But I am detaining
you—I certainly have no intention of appealing to
the feelings of a lady who has so stern a sense of
duty.” Layton spoke with unaffected scorn. Nothing
could appear more unlovely in his eyes, more
unfeminine, and, as he said ungraceful in a lady
than consideration in money affairs. He mentally
accused Gertrude of parsimony, of miserliness, of
utter insensibility to the soft charities of life; but
the current of his feelings was changed, when a moment
after the door was thrown open, and Emilie
rushed in and threw herself at his feet, exclaiming
passionately, “Oh, my dear father, pity me!—have
mercy on me!”
Her customary manner was so quiet and gentle
that there was something frightful in this turbulent
emotion. Gertrude sprang towards her—“My dear
Emilie,” she said, “what does this mean?”
There seemed to be a spell in Gertrude's voice;
Emilie was hushed for a moment—she turned her
eyes to her friend with the most intense supplication,
and then again bursting into heart-piercing cries,
she said, “No, no—you cannot help me. Oh, my
father, my dear father, if you ever loved me, even
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when I was a little child—if you once wished to
make me happy, do not now abandon me to utter
misery! Gertrude—this very week—oh, I shall go
wild. My dear father, pity me!—Gertrude, beg for
me!”
Gertrude burst into tears. “For God's sake,
Mr. Layton,” she cried, “save your child from this
cruel fate!”
“Do you feel!” he exclaimed, gazing at Gertrude,
as if he were surprised at her emotion—“do
you feel? Then even the stones cry out against me”—
and giving way to a burst of uncontrollable feeling,
he raised Emilie and pressed her to his bosom.
“Pity me—pity me, my child; I am miserable, condemned,
wretched, lost. Speak the word, Emilie—
say I shall dissolve this engagement with Pedrillo,
and I will—I will go to prison. We will all sink
together into this abyss of ruin and misery. Speak,
Emilie, and it shall be so.”
Emilie was terrified by her father's passionate
emotion, and she gathered strength at the first
thought of a generous motive for her sacrifice.
“Oh, no, no,” she replied, “let it be me alone,
if there must be a victim—I have expected it—I can
bear it.” She dropped her head on her father's
shoulder.
`Can I,' thought Gertrude, `look passively on
this distressful conflict? why have I not heard from
my father?—why should I wait to hear?—he would
not be less willing to interpose than I am—I will
speak to the wretched man—I will try;' and she
was on the point of giving utterance to her purpose,
when a servant appeared at the open door with a
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packet of letters. Her eye ran hastily over the
superscriptions. One was from her father. She
broke the seal and glanced at its contents, and then
turning to Emilie, she threw her arms about her,
and said with a look of ineffable joy, “Now, Emilie,
I can redeem my promise to you.” Emilie looked
up bewildered, a faint light dawned on her mind,
but it was a light struggling through darkness.
There was a strange sickly fluttering about her
heart, like that felt by the sufferer who has resigned
himself to the executioner when his uncertain sense
first catches the cry of pardon.
“I thought you had withdrawn, Miss Clarence,”
said Mr. Layton, with evident confusion and undisguised
displeasure, “I am not aware that your
residence under my roof invests you with a right to
witness our most private affairs.”
Gertrude did not condescend to notice this offensive
speech. She replied with a little faltering, for
she found it difficult to embody in words her long
mediated project, “Mr. Layton, my position in
your family has given me a knowledge of your
affairs, unsought for and most painful.”
“Such assurances are superfluous, madam.”
“No, not superfluous,” she continued, with unabated
gentleness, “for the knowledge that Emilie's
happiness was in jeopardy, has inspired me with the
hope to serve her.”
“By advice and remonstrance, no doubt---the
selfish and cold-hearted are ever lavish of such services.”
“I waited only for a letter from my father,” she
proceeded, without seeming to hear him, “it has
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come, and is what I expected. Mr. Layton, I must
be more explicit than you may think becomes me.
This is no time to make sacrifices to fastidiousness—
Emilie allow me to speak alone with your father.”
She kissed Emilie tenderly as she turned to withdraw
and whispered, “take heart of grace, my
blessed—all must yet be well.”
Mr. Layton gazed at Gertrude with an impatient
expectation of remonstrance, but she spoke in a
voice and with a look like an angel's extending
celestial aid to a mortal lost in a labyrinth. “Mr.
Layton,” she said, “there is no time, and this is no
occasion for distrusts on your part, or delays on
mine. I have come to the knowledge, no matter
how, that you are involved in pecuniary obligations
to Mr. Pedrillo. May not the cancelling of these
obligations save Emilie from this marriage?”
“What right have you, Miss Clarence, to ask
this question; and how, in God's name, am I to
cancel any pecuniary obligations?”
“My right,” she replied, “is indisputable, for
rests on my affection for Emilie, and my hope to
save you from an eternal sorrow by satisfying Pedrillo's
claims.”
“Poor dreaming girl!” exclaimed Layton, half
incredulous and half contemptuous, “you talk of
satisfying Pedrillo's claims, when your generosity
could not stretch to the hazard of one poor thousand
dollars.”
“No,” returned Gertrude, with a smile, “we
money-dealers, Mr. Layton, are all calculators—we
require an equivalent for our money. Emilie's redemption
from this deep misery is worth to me any
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sacrifice I can make. Her emancipation from this
engagement is the equivalent I demand, the only
return I wish. No, this is not all; you must promise
me not only her freedom, but that she shall be
at liberty to give her hand to Randolph Marion,
on whom she has already worthily bestowed her
heart. If you accede to my terms, you will furnish
me with a statement of the amount of Pedrillo's
claims.”
“Good Heaven!—are you in earnest—have you
deliberated?—your father, Miss Clarence?”
“I have already told you that I have only waited
for his sanction. Read, if you please, what he says
on the subject.”
Layton ran his eye hastily over a few paragraphs
of the letter, and trembling with new emotions, he
exclaimed, “Oh, he has not—you have not dreamt
of the hideous amount of my debt to that villain.”
“We do not know it, but we should not shrink
from any amount within the compass of our fortune.
Be more calm, Mr. Layton—take this pencil and
give me in writing the sum due.”
“Look over me, then,” he said, seizing a sheet
of paper, “look over me, and arrest my hand when
the sum exceeds your intentions. He then recalled
and recorded the debts contracted from time to
time. He stopped suddenly—“These are thousands,
not hundreds, Miss Clarence.”
“I understand perfectly”—replied Gertrude,
“go on.”
He proceeded, till running up the different specifications,
he set down the sum total, “Sixty
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thousand dollars!” he said. “You see now, Miss
Clarence, how deep, how hopeless is my ruin.”
“Hopeless! do you still doubt that I am in earnest,
Mr. Layton?”
“But you cannot design---Miss Clarence, I will
not deceive you. I can by no possibility repay any
portion of this debt.”
“You forget that I have made my own terms,
Mr. Layton. Assure me that Emilie is at liberty
to indulge the honorable inclinations of her heart,
and I will at once convey to you the amount of property
you have mentioned.”
Layton did not reply—he could not. He was
almost frantic with conflicting emotions; a manly
shame, that he had underrated and insulted a woman
capable of such generosity and forbearance—
a thrilling joy at the thought of escaping from
thraldom, checked by the stinging consciousness,
that he remained Pedrillo's slave, while the secret
of his dishonor was in his keeping. He pressed
his hands to his throbbing temples—he paced the
room, and replied only by incoherent ejaculations, to
Gertrude's entreaties, which were urged as if she
were suing for her own happiness.
There is a salutary principle in the atmosphere of
virtue—a quickening influence in a noble action—
an inspiration caught from powerful goodness.
`Will Gertrude Clarence do this for her friend,'
he thought, `and shall not I run a risk---sacrifice
myself, if it must be, for my child? It is but the
name of honor that I have to lose!'
But was it not possible to break with Pedrillo, and
still preserve that name?---Pedrillo might make the
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long dreaded disclosure, but he had no proof, and
would the word of a disappointed man, a revengeful
Spaniard, be credited?' Layton felt assured it would
not; and without waiting to deliberate further, he
poured out his honest thanks to Gertrude, and received
the papers that placed at his disposal the
price of Emilie's liberty.
Thus authorized to tell Emilie that she was mistress
of her own destiny, Gertrude flew to her friend,
her face radiant with the happiness she was to communicate.
Banished spirits restored to paradise,
could not have been more blissful than the two
friends; Emilie receiving more than life and liberty,
a release from the cruellest enthralment, and
at her hands, whose favors had the unction of celestial
mercy; and not release only, but the assurance
that her affections might now expand in the natural
atmosphere of a pure, requited, and acknowledged
love.
Delicious as Emilie's sensations were, Gertrude's
was even a more elevated joy, for
`If there is a feeling to mortals given,
That has less of earth in it than Heaven,'
it is that quiet inward joy, that springs from the consciousness
of benevolent and successful efforts for
others; of efforts to which one is not impelled by
any authorised claim, which the world does not demand,
nor reward, nor can ever know—which can
have no motive, nor result in self. A perfectly disinterested
action is a demonstration to the spirit of
its alliance and communion with the divine nature—
an entrance into the joy of its Lord.
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Not a shadow dimmed their present sun-shine—
not one presaging thought of coming evil—not one
transient presentiment of the fatal consequences of
that hour's decisions.
As soon as their spirits were sufficiently tranquilized,
Emilie sat down to write a note to Marion,
and Gertrude to read her letters. Those shorter,
and of less consequence than her father's we shall
first present; and our readers will confess, they
were of a nature to bring down our heroine's feelings
to the level of very common life.
“To Miss Clarence.
“Respected lady: `If a man would thrive, he
“should wive,' therefore, as agent, and acting for
“my son, (John Smith,) I have the satisfaction of
“proposing an alliance (matrimonial) between you
“and him, (that is, my son.) He is a remarkable
“genteel young man in a drawing-room, (John is)
“—quite up to any thing, but as that is where you
“have seen him, (chiefly,) I shall say no more
“about it, only observing that my son (John) always
“goes for the first, (he can afford it,) i. e. Wheeler's
“coats—Whitmarsh's pantaloons—Byrne's boots—
“&c. &c.—which is, (I take it,) the reason he has
“made you, valued lady, his choice; you being
“the first match in the city (at present). John
“(my son) has been a healthy lad from the egg,
“and cleanly, (his mother says,) thorough cleanly.
“A touch of the intermittent, that he is taken down
“with, (this evening,) makes nothing against it (i. e.
-- 192 --
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“against his constitution). As I have found pro
“crastination (in all kinds of business) a bad thing,
“and to strike while the iron's hot, a safe rule
“(without exceptions), and as the doctor says my
“son (John) may be down for a week, I concluded
“(knowing his mind) not to delay, for fear of acci
“dents. As I have not writ a love-letter since I
“married my wife, I hope you will, ma'am, excuse
“all mistakes and deficiencies. As soon as I re
“ceive a punctual answer, (to the above,) we will ar
“range all matters of business, (there I'm at home,)
“to your, and your honored father's wishes. (Er
“rors excepted,) your obedient servant to command,
“ma'am,
“Sam'l Smith.”
Gertrude read Mr. Smith's letter and threw it
into the fire, but before it was consumed, she snatched
it out, and preserved it as a happy illustration of
the flattering honors, to which an heiress may be
doomed. The following brief reply ended this correspondence.
“Miss Clarence presents her compliments to Mr.
“Samuel Smith. She is very happy to hear that
“his son—Mr. John Smith—has a good constitu
“tion, and laudable habits, but must decline the
“honor of deriving any advantage from them.”
The succeeding epistle was from Mr. D. Flint.
“To Miss Clarence.
“Dear girl—I hope you will not deem my ad
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“dress to you at this time premature. I assure you
“the sentiment that prompts my pen was begun in
“esteem, and has ripened into love. I declare to
“you upon my honor, Miss Clarence, that I have
“never seen a lady, whom my head and heart both
“so wholly approved as yourself; and I feel very
“sure that no change of circumstances, or fortune,
“could ever make any difference in my feelings, but
“that in all the vicissitudes of this sublunary scene,
“I should show you every attention which man
“owes to the weaker sex.
“I wish, on all occasions, to be fair and above-
“board; and therefore, I deem it my duty to ac
“company this offer of my hand with a candid ac
“count of my family. My father resides in Con
“necticut. He is an independent farmer, and an
“honest man---`the noblest work of God,' Miss Cla
“rence. He had not, it is true, the advantages of
“education, which he gave to me, and which have
“made my lot so distinguished. My mother is a
“sensible, and good woman, though rather plain.
“Her prophetic verse in the last chapter of Pro
“verbs, is, as my father often remarks, literally ful
“filled, `her children rise up and call her blessed,
“her husband also, and he praiseth her.' I pro
“mised to be candid, and therefore must state to
“you, that my eldest brother—the child of a former
“marriage, and therefore, only my half-brother---
“committed a crime when he was about thirteen,
“for which, he was obliged to flee the country. It
“is now more than twenty years since, and as he
“has never been heard from, and as he was, as I
“observed above, but my half-brother, I hope you
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“will overlook this stain on our name, which has
“been the greatest of griefs and humiliations to my
“poor father.
“I am sensible that my parents are not precisely
“such persons as compose our circle in New York;
“but as they seldom or never come to town, you will
“not be mortified by their being brought into com
“parison with our acquaintance here. It is right,
“however, to state that, while they live, I shall make
“them an annual visit, and shall expect of course
“that Mrs. Flint will wish to accompany me. May
“my right hand wither, before I fail in any act of
“duty or kindness to my honored parents!
“And now, my dear girl, I beg you will give a
“week's consideration to the contents of this letter,
“and then answer it according to the dictates of
“your own good sense. May the answer be propi
“tious to the most earnest wish of your devoted
“friend and lover,
D. Flint.”
Blunt and gauche as our friend Flint was, his
coarser qualities were so commingled with simplicity,
integrity, and good-heartedness, that our heroine,
if she had been compelled to select one from among
her professed suitors, would undoubtedly have laid the
crown matrimonial on Mr. D. Flint's aspiring brow;
but as she was fortunately exempt from so cruel a
necessity, she laid the letter aside to be answered as
he had requested, at the end of a week, and strictly
`according to the dictates of her good sense.'
The last and most important letter was from Mr.
Clarence.
-- 195 --
“Marion Hall, Virginia.
[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]
“My dear child—I have just received your last
“two letters. I trust no evil will ensue from the de
“lay of the first.
“Poor Seton! His fate has cost me many tears,
“but I am deeply thankful for his dismissal. I
“know nothing more distressful than to be con
“demned to drag through a long life, with broken
“health, a sensitive temper, and that bitter drug,
“poverty. His felicity in heaven is, I doubt not,
“enhanced by his sufferings on earth.
“Roscoe's generous kindness to Louis, is in con
“formity to my impressions of his character. I was
“a little captious in relation to the Roscoes when I
“was in New York, and suffered certain trifling ir
“ritations to influence my feelings improperly, and
“I am afraid, my dear Gertrude, that you have che
“rished a resentment quite out of proportion to their
“offences, and inconsistent with your native gentle
“ness. How is it possible, my dear child, that you
“should have met Roscoe in Louis' room, and not
“have communicated your name? Suffer me to
“say, that I think there was rather more pride than
“dignity in this procedure; or was it rustic girlish
“ness, Gertrude? And have you been making a
“pretty little romantic mystery of your name? In
“either case, my child, I entreat that you will put
“an end to it. I fear that Gerald, when he disco
“vers the truth, will be—no, not disgusted—the
“word is too harsh—but a little rebuté.”
Gertrude pondered over the above portion of her
letter for at least half an hour, before she proceeded;
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and then she gave rather a listless and undutiful attention
to what followed.
“I thank you, my dear Gertrude, for transmitting
“to me your impressions, while they are fresh and
“unmodified by experience, of the society in
“which you are moving. I am attached to New
“York from early habit; it was the scene of the
“happiest portion of my life. It is a noble city—
“a wide field for every talent—full of excitement,
“of facilities for the enterprising, stimulants and
“motives to exertion, and rewards to industry and
“ability. But that its opulence, its accumulating
“wealth, its commercial potentiality, its rapid pro
“gress, should be the themes of the exulting patriot,
“or the political economist, rather than of the senti
“mental young lady, does not surprise me. New
“York, you say, appears to you like an oriental
“fair, `to which all the nations of the earth have
“sent their representatives to bargain and to bustle.'
“You are disgusted with the vacuity, the flippancy,
“the superficial accomplishments, the idle competi
“tions, the useless and wasteful expenditure, of the
“society in which you mingle.
“But there are, my dear Gertrude, and I fear
“must be, sins and follies in every human condi
“tion. Ignorance and pretension, the petty jea
“lousies of the rich of yesterday towards the rich
“of to-day, are evils necessarily incident to a state
“of society so fluctuating as that of New York.
“Where wealth is the only effective aristocra
“cy; the dregs, of course, often rise to the sur
“face. But New York has its cultivated and re
“fined minds---its happy homes---the most elevated
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“objects of pursuit---noble institutions---expansive
“charities, and whatever gives diguity and effect to
“life: and have you forgotten, Gertrude, that, `un
“meet nurse' as it may be `for poetic child,' it is
“the residence of a triumvirate of poets that would
“illustrate any land?
“It is I confess mortifying, that, in our country,
“where we ought
`To read the perfect ways of honor,
`And claim by these our greatness,'
“and not by any external nor accidental distinction---
“nor by being, in the noble language of Thurlow,
“`the accident of an accident,' there should be such
“an artificial construction of society---such perpe
“tual discussions of relative genteelness---so much
“secret envy, and manifest contempt, and anxious
“aspiration after a name and place in fashionable
“society. We deplore this, but that it has its
“source in man's natural love of distinction, you
“and I must conclude, who have so often laugh
“ed over the six distinct ranks in our village of
“Clarenceville, so blending into each other, like
“the colors of the rainbow, that no common ob
“server could tell where one ended and another
“began.
“One more criticism on your impressions, my
“dear child, and I have done. You have fallen
“into a common youthful error. You have formed
“your conclusions from individual and very limited
“experience. The prevailing cast of the society
“which Mrs. Layton courts and attracts, is such as
“you describe; but you must remember that the
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“most exalted names in our land are occasionally
“found in the ranks of fashion, and I will not allow
“any society to be condemned en masse, where
“such persons are to be met, as Gerald Roscoe,
“Emilie Layton, and my Gertrude!
“And this brings me to subjects far more inter
“esting than any general speculations, and which I
“have purposely reserved till you should have duti
“fully read through all my prosing. I have by me
“a letter from Stephen Morley, Esq., announcing
“the appointment of my good friend Randolph,
“which Morley does not hesitate to ascribe to his
“(Morley's) `desire to oblige Miss C. and her fa
“ther.' Thereupon he founds a claim to a recipro
“city of service; and after a formal declaration of
“his admiration of my daughter; he asks my consent
“to his addresses—and my views as to settlements.
“I have answered him by a simple reference of the
“whole affair to your arbitrement.
“You cannot for a moment have doubted what
“my reply would be to your first hasty and elo
“quent letter. It suffused my eyes with tears, and
“made my heart throb with the most delicious sen
“sations. You seem to fear that I may deem your
“purpose rash—a `disproportioned thought,' and
“you tell me it was the inspiration of the moment.
“My beloved Gertrude, it was a noble inspiration,
“worthy of that heart that never yet `affected emi
“nence nor wealth.' You say, and truly, that `an
“unwilling marriage is the worst slavery—the in
“dulgence of strong and innocent affections beyond
“all price.' My child, your purpose has my entire
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“approbation, and you shall have my thanks for
“any sacrifices you may make to extricate Emilie.
“My only regret will be, my dear Gertrude, that
“you, who have so just an estimate of property—
“so fixed and operative a resolution to devote it to
“its noblest and most effective purposes, should
“transfer it to the hands of profligates and spend-
“thrifts. But we must solace ourselves with the re
“flection that Providence has so wisely regulated
“human affairs, that there is not so much left to in
“dividual discretion as we, in our vain glory, are apt
“to imagine. The money that we often regard as
“wasted, is put into rapid circulation, and soon
“goes to compensate the industry and ingenuity of
“the artisan and tradesman. It is sometimes as
“consoling to know our own impotence, as at
“others to feel our moral power.
“My tenderest love to my sweet little friend Emi
“lie---my blessing to you, my beloved child. God
“be with you, and strengthen every benevolent
“feeling, and virtuous purpose.
“Most affectionately,
“Your father,
“C. Clarence.”
“P. S. I beg you Gertrude, to dismiss your
“pique against Gerald Roscoe---you will oblige me
“in this---I have been in fault, but I had no intention
“of implanting in your mind a permanent prejudice
“against him.”
-- 200 --
CHAPTER XII.
“We revoke not our purposes so readily.”
—Br.
[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]
When Layton was left in the library by Gertrude,
he had before him the necessary and difficult
task of communicating to Pedrillo his final decision.
The course of safety and true policy in this,
as in every case, lay in the path of integrity. If
Layton had, with the courage of a manly spirit, resolved
not to shrink from the disclosure of his guilt,
it is possible he might have averted Pedrillo's vengeance;
but, alas! truth and simplicity are the
helm and rudder first lost in the wreck of human
virtue. Layton wrote half a dozen notes, and
finally sealed and sent the following, in which he
committed one of those fatal errors by which men
seem so blindly and so often to prepare the net for
their own destruction.
“My dear Pedrillo,—It is with infinite pain that
“I find myself compelled to announce to you, my
“daughter's unconquerable aversion to yield to
“your wishes, and her father's prayers and com
“mands. It is in vain to contend longer. I have
“done every thing that the warmest friendship and
“the deepest and most heartily acknowledged obli
“gations could exact from me. Her mother too has
“argued, pleaded, and remonstrated in vain. But,
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“console toi, mon ami, even Cæsar's fortunes yield
“ed to fate, and there are others as young and as
“fair as my ungrateful girl, who will be proud to
“give you both heart and hand. You are too
“much of a philosopher to repine because the wind
“blows north, when you would have it south—shift
“your sails, and make for another port.
“As to our pecuniary relations—Fortune, the
“jade, has, thank Heaven, made a sudden turn in
“my favor, and I am in purse to the full amount of
“my debts to you. We will adjust these affairs by
“letter, or meet for the purpose, when and where
“you please.
“My dear friend, I feel quite confident that the
“menace you threw out as to a certain mode of re
“senting a failure which, upon my honor, is no
“fault of mine, was uttered in a moment of excite
“ment. You are, I am sure, far too generous, too
“honorable to betray a secret to the—(here he
“made the conventional sign for the gaming club,)
“which would ruin me, without doing you the least
“possible good. Such unmotived cruelty men of
“your sense, Pedrillo, leave to fools.
“Believe me, with unfeigned regret that this can
“be the only relation between us, your sincere and
“unalterable friend,
“Jasper Layton.”
Whatever Layton might have hoped from the
servility of his note, from his assurances of confidence
in Pedrillo's generosity, written as they were
with so trembling a hand as to be almost illegible,
he looked in vain for a reply. He remained at
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home, listening with feverish expectation to the ringing
of the door-bell; a suffering worthy of a poet's inferno,
in all cases of delay and final disappointment.
There came oyster-men, and orange-men, and ashmen,
servants with billets, boys with bills, (scores of
them,) fine gentlemen, and fine ladies; but that for
which his strained ear listened came not, and evening
arrived without any response whatever. He
then despatched a servant with a note, inquiring of
Pedrillo if he had received the former one. The
man returned with a verbal message, that the note
had been received.
“Did you ask,” demanded Layton, “if there
were any answer?”
“I did, sir, and Mr. Pedrillo said if you wished
an answer, he would give it to you this evening at
the place mentioned in your note.”
“The place—I mentioned no place—you have
made some stupid mistake, John; go back and tell
him I specified no place—stop—good Heaven!—
yes it is—it must be there he means,” and he snatched
his hat and was rushing out of the house, when
Flint opened the parlor-door and called out, “we
are waiting for you, Mr. Layton.”
“Waiting—for what?”
“Are you not going to the theatre with the
ladies?”
“No, tell them I have an indispensable engagement;”
and losing every other thought in one terrifying
apprehension, he hastened to the secret rendezvous
of the club. The accustomed party was
assembled there, with the exception of Pedrillo; and
Layton, after an anxious survey of the apartment,
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passed into an inner room. Pedrillo soon after entered,
inquired for him, and joined him.
Layton essayed to speak in his usual tone of
friendly recognition. Pedrillo made no reply for
an instant, but looked at him with a diabolical expression
of mingled scorn and malignity, and then
going close to him, he said in a smothered voice,
his teeth firmly set, and beginning with an oath too
horrible to repeat.
“— think ye to escape me?—`unmotived
eruelty!' Have ye not paltered with me for months?
Have ye not baited me on with hollow promises,
finally, and at the very last, when you think I have
no resource, to shake me off! `Unmotived crnelty'—
have I not been a humble suitor at your daughter's
door from day to day? have I not endured her
coldness, her disdain, her shrinking from me, as if
I were a loathsome pestilence—and this in the eye
of gaping fools?—Have I not sat passively by, like
a doating idiot, and seen her cheek change at the
mention of Marion's name?—`Unmotived cruelty!'
has not my purse saved you again and again from
prison—my silence prevented your being kicked
from these doors, and driven from society?”
“Pedrillo—Pedrillo!”
“Nay, I care not who hears me. By Heavens,
Layton, I will speak in a voice that shall be heard
by every man, woman, and child in the city; your
proud name shall be a by-word, coupled with cheat—
liar—”
“Pedrillo!”
“Away—the hour of reckoning has come—
gentlemen,” he cried, placing his hand on the door
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in the act of opening it. Layton pushed away his
arm, and stood firmly against the door: “Hear me,
Pedrillo,” he said, “for one instant—you have
no proof—I will deny your charges to my last
breath—they will not believe your assertion against
mine—I their fellow-citizen—you a foreigner—a
Spaniard!”
“A Spaniard!” echoed Pedrillo; he paused for
a moment, and a flash of infernal joy lit up his face;
“my thanks to you—you have forgotten the confession
of guilt in your morning's note? Think ye
the Spaniard's word will be believed by your fellow-citizens,
vouched by the accused's written, voluntary
confession?”
Layton now, for the first time, felt the full and inevitable
force of the power that was about to crush him.
The blood forsook his cheeks and lips, his arms fell
as if they were paralyzed, an aguish chill shook his
whole frame, and he staggered back and sunk into
a chair. No tortures of the rack could surpass
those of the moments of silence and dread that followed.
He was like one expecting the blow of the
executioner, blind, and deaf to every sound but the
horrible hissing in his ears, when the spell of acute
torment was broken by Pedrillo's voice, whispering
close to him, “It is not yet too late!”
Layton gasped for breath; he looked up to Pedrillo
with a wild, vacant gaze, “I tell you,” repeated his
tormentor, glaring on him like a tiger who has his
prey in his clutches, “I tell you it is not yet too late—
the alarm word is not spoken, and you may yet leave
this place with unsullied reputation, if”—
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Large drops of sweat stood on Layton's temples.
“If what?—speak, Pedrillo—my brain is on fire.”
“I will speak—and remember, I speak for the
last time—mark my words—I am no longer to be
put off with pretexts, and duped with promises—
Emilie must be mine—without delay—you must accede
to my terms—swear to obey my directions implicitly—
not a breath for deliberation—yes or no?”
“Yes,” was faintly articulated by the recreant father.
“Hold up your right hand then, and swear to
obey my orders—precisely—hold up your right
hand, I say—if,” he added, with a scornful laugh,
“if it be not palsied.”
Layton held up his hand, and repeated after Pedrillo
the most solemn form of adjuration. When
this sacrilege was ended, Pedrillo said, “Come to
my room to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. I shall
have contrived and arranged the means to effect my
purpose, and be ready to give you your instructions.
Now, poor dog, go and join your fellows, and cheat
and be cheated. You are not the only scoundrel,
Layton, that passes along with a fair name; you are
not the only one who feels the shame and the misery
to consist not in the crime, but in the exposure!”
With this parting scoff, Pedrillo left his victim in
an abyss of intolerable humiliation and anguish.
He dared not look back; he could not look forward,
and he madly rushed to the gaming-table,
to seek in its excitements a temporary oblivion.
Before he left it, he had pledged and lost the
largest portion of that money which on the
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morning he had received from Gertrude Clarence for so
sacred a purpose.
And this was the man who had so recently manifested,
and really felt, generous instincts and kindly
emotions. But what are instincts and emotions,
compared with principles and habits? Those exhale
in the fierce heat of temptation, while these move
on in a uniform and irresistible current.
From the club, Pedrillo hastened to a scene of
external gaiety which he felt to contrast frightfully
with the wild disorder of the evil spirit, that was anticipating
the judgment of Heaven, and was truly
`its own hell.' He knew that Mrs. Layton and her
party were at the theatre. He ascertained the box
they occupied, and gained admittance at a moment
when his entrance attracted no attention, the audience
being apparently absorbed in observing a spirited
actress, who was going through an animated
scene of a popular comedy. We said all were thus
absorbed; but it was evident to Pedrillo's quick
perception, that two individuals of Mrs. Layton's
party were engaged in a little dramatic episode of
their own, far more interesting to them than any
counterfeit emotion.
Emilie Layton was seated beside Randolph Marion,
simply dressed, without one of those costly ornaments,
Pedrillo's favors, which she had recently
worn in compliance with her mother's requisitions,
and which, regarding them as the insignia of her
slavery, she had cast off and spurned at the first moment
of freedom. Nature's signs of another and willing
thraldom now lent the most exquisite embellishment
to her beautiful face.
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The deep, speaking glow of her cheek—the
smile that played over her half-parted lips—the
dazzling ray that shot from beneath her eye-lids,
consciously downcast, were the jewels that revealed
her happy spirit. Marion, at short intervals, uttered
brief sentences, perfectly inaudible to all ears
but Emilie's; but, as every body knows, the atmosphere
of lovers, like that of pure oxygen, gives a
marvellous brilliancy and force, to all things visible
and audible. In front of the lovers, and forgotten
by them, but filling other eyes, sat Mrs. Layton,
Miss Clarence, Miss Mayo, Major Daisy, and Mr.
D. Flint—it was a proud moment for our friend
Flint; he had reached the station for which he had
long panted, as mortals covet the unattainable—he
was perched on the very top-rung of fashion's ladder.
He felt a secret delightful conviction, that he
was to be naturalized, where he had been an alien.
He had told his love—(the damask of Flint's ruddy
cheek was not destined to feed concealment,) and he
was received by Miss Clarence with something more
than her usual kindness of manner. His innocent
vanity knew not what this could mean, if it did not
mean love; and with a brilliant perspective in his
imagination, and seated between Miss Mayo and
Miss Clarence, he looked like the king of the gods,
all-complacent.
Suddenly it seemed that a `change came o'er the
spirit of his dream.' His eye, as it rolled in friendly
recognition from box to box, and glanced athwart
the full pit, was suddenly arrested by the figure of a
plain old man, whose position was nearly in the centre
of the pit, his chin resting on his cane, and who
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was devouring the play with the eagerness of a novice.
This old man was—we must let the reader
into the secret—D. Flint's father, and honored by
his son with filial reverence; but never had the worthy
son anticipated such a trial of his virtue, as encountering
his father in such a scene. If the old
man should see him, he knew he would force his
way to him; would greet him in his homely phrase—
would call him by that Christian name, so long, so
studiously, and so successfully concealed.
Any where else, at any other moment, he would
have overcome these shrinkings—but at this critical
point in his destiny, in the presence of Miss Clarence,
and Miss Mayo, aristocratic and exclusive by
birth, fortune, and feeling—and to encounter too,
the sarcastic observation of Mrs. Layton, who
delighted to remind him that he had no rights within
her circle—and Daisy's shrug, which at every approach
of the vulgar looked the pharisaical prayer,
`God save us of the privileged order;'—it was all
too formidable an array of circumstances, even for
D. Flint's iron nerves, and for the first time in his
life, he meditated a pretext and a retreat, and halfrose
from his seat, but his honest soul revolted from
the meanness, and he determined, with the resolution
of a martyr, to maintain his position.
The second act closed, and the curtain fell, and
the greater part of the audience rose, as usual. Flint
(pardon him, gentle reader!) abruptly turned his
back to the pit. He had scarcely effected this movement,
when Miss Clarence said, “What a striking
figure that old man is in the centre of the
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[figure description] Page 209.[end figure description]
pit---he has a fine antique head---do you see him Miss
Mayo?”
“Yes---a hero of the stamp of the revolution, no
doubt---probably one of the survivors of the Bunker-hill
battle whom, as my tory uncle says, time
multiplies like the wood of the true cross.”
“Miss Mayo's random guess, had hit the mark.
He was one of the valiant heroes of that day, still
so `freshly remembered,' and its story, the good old
man had taught his son, and that son did now long
to discharge his memory of its treasure; but he
could far easier have fought his father's battles, than
he could have spoken of them then; for Miss Clarence
exclaimed, “the old man is forcing his way
towards our box.” Flint turned his head just
enough to get an oblique glance at his father, who
was eagerly intent on the box occupied by our party,
but another object than Mr. D. Flint attracted him.
His eye was fixed on Pedrillo, who stood alone
with folded arms---a most conspicuous figure, resting
his back against the door of the box. Flint had his
own emotions to take care of, or he would have noticed
the sudden change in Pedrillo's countenance,
when his eye, turning from its intent gaze on Emilie,
encountered the old man's—he tried to avert it, but
it seemed spell-bound; in vain he tried `to stiffen
the sinews, and summon up the blood.' The ghastly
paleness of his cheek, and his livid lips, betrayed
a thrilling, agonizing consciousness. Still, as if rivetted
to the spot by a law of nature, he stood, while
the stranger continued to approach, speaking to one
and another, and pointing their attention to him,
but evidently receiving no satisfactory reply. When
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the old man was near enough to be overheard by
our party—“Will any one” he said, “tell me who
that gentleman is?”
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared out a vulgar fellow, who
had been amused at the stranger's extraordinary eagerness,
“the old cock thinks he is crowing in his
own barn-yard.”
Nature had been warming and rising in Flint's
honest bosom, and at this insult it overflowed. He
leaped into the pit, with the spirit of Bunker-hill,
and roughly pushing aside the offender with one
arm, he stretched the other towards the old man, exclaiming
in a breath, “impertinent rascal!” and
“dear father, how are you?” His father started,
as if waked from a dream, and grasping the extended
hand, responded to the cordial greeting, “Duty!
my son!—Lord bless you, Duty! how are you, my
boy?” and he consummated the paternal benediction
with a hearty kiss.
By this time all eyes were turned upon the father
and son. Two or three loud laughs and a few
cries of “encore!” were heard, but more honorable
emotions prevailed, and generous sympathy with
the simple demonstration of the true and pure affections
of nature burst forth in a general clap.
The father was happily unconscious that he was
the subject of observation. His interest had reverted
to its first object, but when he turned his eye
in quest of Pedrillo, he had vanished. Duty, amid
better emotions, had a throbbing fear of degradation,
till his startled ear caught Miss Clarence's
voice, seconded by Miss Mayo, asking him to conduct
his father to their box. Flint's glistening eyes
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and protracted smile expressed his sense of the goodness
that seemed to set the seal to his fortune. He
immediately conducted his father out of the pit.
When they were alone, “Did you know,” inquired
the father, “the person who stood, with his arms
folded, behind the ladies, that spoke to you?”
“Know him! yes, sir, perfectly well—his name
is Pedrillo; he is a rich Spanish merchant from
Cuba.”
“Spanish!---from Cuba! do you know any thing
more of him?”
“Yes, sir, all about him---but do not stop here,
sir, you are trembling with the cold.”
“Not with the cold,” murmured the old man;
“What else do you know of him, Duty?”
“Why, not much after all; I never liked the
man---though I always thought he looked very much
like you, sir.”
“Do you think so, Duty?”
“Yes, sir, but pray come along father---Mr.
Pedrillo is perfectly well known to our first merchants,
and if you have any curiosity about him,
I can find out, to-morrow, whatever you want to
know.”
“Well, well!” said the old man with a sigh,
“proceed then, Duty;” and he followed his son,
communicating to him as he went, that he had arrived
in town that evening, and not finding him at
his lodgings, and `not feeling like going to sleep
till he saw him, he had come to the theatre to while
away the time.'
As they entered the box the young ladies, undaunted
by Daisy's attempts at witty sarcasms, and Mrs.
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Layton's piquant raillery, gave the old gentleman
the place his son had occupied between them, and in
spite of a whisper to Gertrude from Mrs. Layton,
that she had best, en Minêrve, crown Duty's father
as Clairon crowned Voltaire, she and her friend
persisted in rendering him all the respect that the
reverence of youth and fashion could pay to honorable
old age. Flint revelled in the honest triumphs
of a good heart and, it must be confessed, in an
emotion destined to be less permanent.
`She has heard my name, she has seen my father,
and never was she so kind and sociable,' thought
he; and he felt that he had taken a bond of fate---
had made assurance doubly sure.
Layton was punctual to his appointment, and
at ten o'clock the following morning appeared at
the City Hotel.
Pedrillo received him with the coolness and determined
air of a man who has surveyed his battleground,
accurately calculated his forces, and definitively
arranged his plan---he had done so, and
with the hardihood that scruples at no means to
attain a long cherished object. He was driven to
this desperation by the threatening aspect of his
affairs. He had, a few days previous, received letters
from a correspondent in the West Indies, informing
him that his position in the United States
was no longer a safe one; that depositions were
about to be forwarded to judicial officers here,
proving his participation in a noted piratical affair,
in which some of the noble young men of our navy
had suffered. He well knew that justice would
neither linger, nor be sparing in her retribution;
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Dangers were accumulating. He had, on the preceding
evening, at the theatre, encountered the eye
that of all others he most dreaded to meet—the
eye of the good old man, his father—for Pedrillo
was, as our readers must long ago have discerned,
the recreant son of the elder Flint—the brother of
our sterling friend Duty---the same still successful
villain who, at fourteen, committed a bold robbery,
and a bloody deed, and fled from his father's roof,
and his country's violated law. How such a scion
should proceed from such a stock, we know not. It
was one of those aberrations in the moral history of
man, that we can no more account for, than for such
physical monsters as the two-headed girl of Paris,
or the Siamese boys.
But, among Mr. Flint's neighbours there were
of course some of those sage persons, who satisfy
themselves with their solution of the riddles of life;
and when little Isaac Flint, (for that was the vernacular
appellation of the heroic Henriques Pedrillo,)
a misdoer from the cradle, broke, for his
sport, a whole brood of young turkies' legs;
sewed up a pet gander's bill; or cut off a cow's
tail; some of these sage expositors would shake
their heads and say, `Spare the rod and spoil the
child.' Others would call to mind certain cruel
deeds done by a maternal ancestor of Isaac, upon
the poor Indians. We honestly confess we are not
among those who believe they can, or who care to
`see through' every thing; we like, now and then,
to indulge ourselves in clouds and mysteries, and
when such an inexplicable wretch as Pedrillo is
found in the bosom of an honest family, we are
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willing to confess, what the Scotch woman said of the
fine sermon, we `hae nae the presumption to comprehend
it.'
Pedrillo was a child of fortune---eminently successful
in his bold career. He spent profusely the
wealth he had accumulated in his lawless adventures;
but the caution of middle age began to steal
on him with its experience, and preferring security
to unlimited but uncertain gains, he gradually withdrew
from his bolder enterprises, and established a
fair mercantile house in Cuba, and honorable commercial
relations. Important money transactions
recalled him to his native country. He had been
absent twenty-five years, and he returned without a
fear of meeting a familiar eye, or the belief that any
eye could recognise in his person the rustic farmer
boy. He was soon involved in intimate, and as it
proved, fatal relations with the Laytons. Affairs
had now worked to a point that admitted no farther
temporizing.
Pedrillo dared not delay his departure a moment
after Monday night. He had that all-conquering
energy that finds stimulant in danger, and spur in
difficulty. He was resolved, at whatever cost—there
he had garnered up his soul—to possess himself of
Emilie Layton. His pride, his revenge, all the
passions of his nature, were now enlisted to effect
this purpose. He had measured and weighed her
father, and he believed that though he had not the
hardihood to execute a bold deed, he might be used
as an effective instrument. With this conviction,
Pedrillo continued a plot, in which by a few master
strokes, he meant to achieve the darling object, for
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which he had borne repeated disappointments, and
months of irritating delay.
“You look pale and ill, this morning,” he said,
as Layton, ghastly and haggard, and with averted
eye, strode up and down the apartment. “`Fortune,
the jade,' showed you her other face last
night, I understand. She has relieved you of a
goodly portion of the load of her favors, you were
so anxious to transfer to me yesterday morning—
hey, my friend?”
“I came hither on business,” replied Layton, impatient
under the scoff he dared not resent.
“Yes, sir—you did come here on business; and
do it with what appetite you may, it must be done,
and done quickly. You have assured me that it is in
vain for you to contend openly with the inclinations
of your daughter. I believe you. You have weak
nerves, Layton.” Layton, for the first time, raised
his eye to the speaker's face. “I repeat it—you
have weak nerves. You could easier order a surgeon
to amputate a limb for your child, than yourself
extract a sliver from her finger.”
“I am not here to be analyzed, sir.”
“You are here for any purpose, to which I choose
to apply you—you are henceforth an instrument—a
tool—yes, a tool, to be worked by my hand.” Layton's
cheek reddened, and the veins in his forehead
swelled almost to bursting, but he remained silent,
stricken with the sense of the abject state to which
he had sunken. “Listen to me,” continued Pedrillo,
“while I communicate my plan. The grand
masquerade, at the Park theatre, is to be on Monday
evening. Your virtuous public is putting off the
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mask of hypocrisy, and putting on other masks.
Miss Clarence, the saint! does not go to the masquerade—
conscientious scruples, no doubt, ha! ha!
Tant mieux, she is disposed of. Miss Emilie too,
purposes to remain at home, tête-à-tête with her
acknowledged lover, Did I not see them together
at the theatre?—I wanted but that to give vigor to
my purpose. Mrs. Layton does go to the masquerade,
with—I know not who—a scene of fine
facilities for ladies of her temper!”
“What has all this to do with—”
“With my plans? Be patient my friend, and I
will tell you. The Juno, in which I must sail for
Cuba, lies in the bay, a few hundred yards from
Whitehall-wharf. The ship is, in all respects, subject
to my orders. She sails at 12 o'clock, on Monday
night. You are to induce Miss Emilie to accompany
you to the masquerade. I think your influence,
or authority, or both, are equal to this
achievement. There we meet. You are soon
obliged to leave the assembly, on any pretext you
choose—I leave that to your own ingenuity. You
ask me to attend Miss Emilie home; a carriage,
previously ordered, will be at the door; we will
drive to the wharf. My boat, well-managed, awaits
us there—a few pulls brings us to the ship, and
once aboard, I am master of my destiny.”
“But, good Heaven, Pedrillo! you have made
no provision for the marriage?”
“Oh, the marriage!—the marriage!” replied Pedrillo,
tauntingly, and smiling, as well he might, at
the importance Layton affixed to a rite, when he
was violating the first law of nature. “The
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marriage, my dear sir, that shall be solemnized, if not
on consecrated ground, and by book and bell, yet
with all lawful ceremony. You have the surest
pledge for this—the only pledge on which a man of
sense relies. It is my interest to marry Miss Layton.
“Layton, `there is a time for all things,'—you see
I remember a few of the pious lessons conned in my
childhood; I have given enough of life to transient
liaisons; you understand me Layton? and having
decided to marry, what think you of showing to the
world, a wife, young, lovely, and beautiful? an
Emilie Layton? Layton is a name well known in
the West Indies—a proud unsullied name.”
Layton's eye fell from Pedrillo's exulting countenance.
His blood curdled. He asked faintly,
“where the marriage ceremony was to be performed?”
“On board the ship—we have a Catholic priest,
who is going out to Cuba. He is well known to
the Catholic Bishop, who will solve any doubts you
may entertain. But why any doubts? have I not
been willing—willing! most anxious to have the
ceremony performed under your own roof, and in
your auspicious presence. Would I not now---you
know I would, Layton---glory in leading your
daughter to the altar, before the assembled universe?
Have I not been foiled in all my honorable efforts?
Has not my patience been tired, exhausted, and am
I not driven, and by your imbecility, to this last
desperate resource?
“Take courage, man—it may seem bad, but it
is not so. I promise you a letter from the Narrows,
signed by Emilie's own hand, attesting that the
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priest has done his duty, and that I have provided
every luxury for her that love could devise, or money
purchase. My man, Denis, has already taken my
orders to an all-knowing French woman to provide
a lady's complete wardrobe. She has a carteblanche
as to expense; and farther, for I would
quiet your paternal qualms—I am not more than
half devil, Layton—there is a plot within a plot, in
this drama of ours. Denis has followed his master's
suit, and has long had a penchant for your
wife's pretty maid, Justine. Love has been kinder
to the man, than to the master. Justine returns his
passion, and but for her old parents, would follow
him to the world's end—such fools are women,
young and old, in their loves. In sympathy with
their tender passion, and to secure Justine's services
for your daughter, I have promised to settle
five hundred dollars on the old people. Justine
has joyfully acceded to my terms. She enters into
all my plans, con amore. She resents my wrongs;
for she thinks—on my soul she does, Layton, that
I have been falsely dealt by. Still drooping, man!
do you any longer doubt my devotion to Miss
Emilie's comfort—and happiness! if she will but
be happy in the way I prescribe?”
Layton was in truth somewhat solaced by these
details, as a man in a dungeon turns to the least
glimmering of light, and he parted from Pedrillo
more tranquilly than he met him, after having arranged
the costumes in which they were to meet;
Emilie in a blue domino, her father in black, and
Pedrillo, (who never forgot the decoration of his
fine person,) in the dress of a Spanish cavalier, with
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three white ostrich feathers attached to his hat by a
diamond cross.
The days that intervened till the masquerade were
marked with unqualified misery to Layton. He
rode about the environs of the city like a half-frantic
man, or shut himself within a solitary apartment of
a tavern. He avoided his acquaintance, he shrunk
from every human being; but most of all he dreaded
to encounter his wronged child, and his noble benefactress,
whose trust he had so basely betrayed.
`But for that last fatal loss,' he said and repeated
to himself, `I would confess all, and abide the consequences.
' And he honestly thought so. Men
often fancy, if circumstances were a little differently
moulded, they should have the courage to do right.
`If it were I alone,' thought Layton, `that had to
meet ruin---but it is not---Emilie---all my children
must suffer with me, all must suffer remediless ruin!
And yet to be a party in this plot against my child—
I—her father, her natural guardian! But, after
all, if it be a plot, it is to effect an object to which
she once assented—which I have avowed—which
the world has approved, which mothers and daughters
have envied. Life is a lottery, Emilie might
marry Marion; but what does he promise more
than I did, when her mother stood exulting with
me at the altar? The poor child must endure a
little disappointment, a little misery—yes, misery it
must be! and she may return to us rid of this wretch,
and with countless wealth—but if she dies of a
broken heart!—well, well, I am too far in to
escape. That horrible violation of Miss Clarence's
trust, I must make her believe I paid the money to
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Pedrillo, he will not be here to contradict it; he
must be loaded with the obloquy of the whole business.
Emilie's husband! but his love, his disappointment,
and his Spanish nature will be reckoned
in his favor.'
Thus reasoning and confuting his own reasonings,
thus vainly endeavouring to stifle a voice that
is never stifled, Layton passed the interval till Monday
evening.
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CHAPTER XIII.
“He has discovered my design, and I
“Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
“For them to play at will.”
Winter's Tale.
[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
The purveyors of the amusements of our city took
advantage of the interval between the extinction of
an old law, and the framing of a new one, to get up
masquerades in all the places of public resort. Laudable
pains were taken by the manager of the Park
Theatre to conciliate that portion of society which,
suspicious of every doubtful form of pleasure, was
expected to frown on that, which had been already
condemned by the public censors on the ground of
its affording facilities to the vicious. Gentlemen of
the first respectability and fashion were selected as
managers, and the maskers were not permitted to
enter the assembly without first unmasking to one
of these gentlemen. The boxes were to be filled
by the more sedate, or fastidious, or timid, who
chose to be stationary spectators of the gaieties of
the evening. The presence of a multitude of well
known observers, was expected to operate as an
effective check to all tendencies to extravagance in
the maskers.
Mrs. Layton had arranged a party for the masquerade.
Her spirits were excited by the approach
of a form of pleasure unknown in this country, save
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in some private circles, where very limited numbers
and thorough mutual acquaintance had precluded
the genius and artifices of invention. Her imagination
was filled with the romantic incidents that
novelists and dramatists have conjured up on this
propitious arena, and she selected her character and
meditated her part with the fresh interest of a girl
of seventeen. She was to personate the Sybil.
The character suited her genius and her figure,
and she said, that `inspiration, like herself, was of no
particular age.' Her dress was a black velvet, so
happily designed by her own exquisite taste, and
executed by the felicitous art of a French dress-maker,
as to avoid the grandmother and dowager
aspect of velvet; to retain the grace without the
form of the reigning fashion, and, in short, to appear
sufficiently classic and imaginative for the
Sybil of poetry. A few laurel leaves were arranged
with a wild fantastic grace in the folds of her
black hair; and over her face, instead of a mask, she
wore a richly wrought white lace veil, which obscured
without concealing her fine features, and
falling over her right shoulder, formed a profuse
and beautiful drapery. She was writing the last
sentences of Fate on embossed cards, which she
purposed to place between ivory tablets and distribute
as sybilline leaves, when Gertrude entered her
apartment, and, after an involuntary tribute to the
beautiful personification before her, asked leave,
to Mrs. Layton's utter amazement, to accompany
her to the masquerade.
“My leave!” exclaimed Mrs. Layton, “your
going will gratify me beyond expression. My dear
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—my—no, not capricious—my mutable Gertrude;
forgive me, but I am so charmed to see you waking
from the rustic reveries of Clarenceville; if you
stay with me three months longer, you will become
quite imperfect and---interesting. But tell me,
seriously, what has so suddenly reversed your decision
against the masquerade?”
“Stronger motives for going than I had for declining
to go.”
“But, my immaculate friend, I thought your
principles were against it.”
“I did not say so.”
“Oh, no, Gertrude, you are not so green, thank
Heaven, as to make a formal profession of principles
on trifling occasions; you only compel us to
infer them from your actions.”
“Thank you, but I am afraid this moral pantomime,
this expression of principles by actions, like
other pantomimes, owes half its significance to the
observer; however, I am content it should do so, if
your interpretation be but as favorable to-morrow
as to-day.” There was something in the intonation
of Miss Clarence's voice, and in the expression
of her half averted eye, that indicated more meaning
than met the ear.
Mrs. Layton cast a penetrating glance at her,
“You talk riddles, Gertrude, but I have no time to
read them now. I presume Emilie has not changed
her mind too? She prefers a tête-à-tête with Marion?”
“Certainly, to all other pleasures.”
“She is right---happy child! these are the rosetinted
hours of love to her; the sands of time are
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`diamond sparks' now; what will they be when,
like her poor mother, it is near `twice ten tedious
years since married she has been?'---heigho!”
“What will they be! diamond sparks still, I
trust. Emilie has done all that mortal can do to
make them run brightly to the last---well placed a
true love.”
“Bless me, Gertrude, you speak con amore. I
am a believer in love too, but not in love matches;
however, though I have not been consulted in the
affair, I have no objection to the transfer of her engagement.
I confess I do not comprehend it. It
is all Layton's affair. I assume no responsibility
about my children, and Layton has made no communication
to me but of the bare unexplained fact.
Indeed I have not seen him since; he has come
home late at night, and gone to his own room.
How he has contrived to satisfy Pedrillo I cannot
conceive, but I am told he was to sail to-day; he
certainly was distractedly fond of Emilie—and so
determined—it is a mysterious business; however I
shall rest satisfied without making any inquiries.
The rule of my philosophy is short and unerring,
`Whatever is, is best.”'
“Provided, Mrs. Layton, we cannot by our
efforts make it better; but, pardon me, I forgot that
my moralizing was limited to action—a difficult
sort of lay-preaching. Promise me,” concluded
Gertrude, kissing Mrs. Layton, with an affectionateness
of manner that brought to that lady's mind
the first days of their intercourse, “promise me that
you will remember your motto to-morrow, `Whatever
is, is best.”'
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“Certainly, my dear girl, to-morrow and for
ever.”
`What can she mean?' thought she, as Gertrude
left her, `by these dark intimations?—nothing,
after all, I'll answer for it—poor thing, her imagination
is so excited by this masquerade—for a woman
of her education she is surprisingly raw in
some things—she thinks, no doubt, she is about to
commit a monstrous sin: what cowards women are
made by such preciseness!'
Timidity of conscience is a defence that Providence
has set about human virtue, and those who
are willing to part with one of its securities, have
not felt sufficiently either its worth or its frailty.
Miss Clarence selected a black domino, the dress
that would be most common, and therefore least
conspicuous, and a mask similar to those generally
worn, of pasteboard and crape---an effectual skreen.
A floor had been extended from the stage over the
pit; and on first entering on this immense area,
thronged with representatives of all ages of the
world, and of every condition of society, she was
nearly overwhelmed with the timidity which a delicate
woman, herself disguised, would naturally feel in a
scene of such fantastic novelty. But she was sustained
by the consciousness of a secret purpose that
was worth effort and sacrifice, and she was soon
tranquillized by the order that prevailed amidst confusion.
There was a general and obvious consciousness
of a new and awkward position; and
with the exception of practised foreigners, and a few
native geniuses, like Mrs. Layton, there was a
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prevailing shyness and tameness, that indicated that
masquerading was as little adapted to our society
as tropical plants to our cold soil.
“Let us step aside from the crowd,” said our
Sybil to her most incongruous attendant, Major
Daisy, in the character of a French Count of the old
school. “I see some persons here who have promised
to join me as soon as they find me out. Gertrude,
do you really expect to remain incognitia?”
“Certainly—you surely have not misunderstood
me?” she replied earnestly, for at that moment she
saw that Roscoe, in his ordinary costume, and without
a mask, was approaching them.
“Then, mon cher Comte, you have only to forget
that our friend bears the name of Clarence; a
burden,” she added, accommodating her voice to
the Major's ear alone, “from which you, as well as
some others, would gladly relieve her.”
“Oh, madame!” responded the delighted Count,
“vous avez vraiment l'esprit de la divination!”
“And, Gertrude, you are the unknown, l'inconnue
mysterieuse, Count.”
“A relation of the mighty unknown,” exclaimed
the Major, forgetting his Countship, and speaking
in character---“a genteel family!”
“Pardon me, Count; if I am to be ingrafted on
that stock, I shall disdain the distinctions of your
citizens' drawing-room---genteel! the mighty unknown
takes precedence of all gentility, of nobility,
of royalty, in all loyal hearts.”
“And in my sybilline office I predict,” said Mrs.
Layton, “that he will be remembered when kings
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and potentates and all the boasts of heraldry are
forgotten.”
“And has the Sybil no kind prediction for one
who has always done homage to her inspiration?”
asked Roscoe, who now joined them, and as he
spoke, reverently raised the folds of Mrs. Layton's
veil to his lips.
“The Sybil is, even to her favorites, but the
minister of Fate. Take what she decrees,” replied
Mrs. Layton, holding high her ivory tablets, and
dropping a card from between them. It fell within
the ample folds of the sleeve of Miss Clarence's domino.
She extricated it, and gave it to Roscoe,
saying as she did so, “This from the oracle, and
may its spiritual counsel or stop, or spur you.”
Roscoe started, electrified by the unexpected
voice, but recovering instantly his self-possession,
he replied, in a low tone, “The only oracle that
can `or stop, or spur me,' is veiled in more than
sybilline mystery.”
“Lisez votre destinée, Monsieur,” cried the Major,
whose feeble attempts to support his character were
limited to the painful effort of constructing a few
French sentences.
“No, it shall be read by our priestess,” said the
Sybil, taking the card from Roscoe's hand, and
placing it in Gertrude's; “why does our votary thus
gaze at us?” she continued, interpreting the confused
and inquiring glance that Roscoe cast, first on
Gertrude, then on herself; “is he offended by finding
the Sybil attended by a priestness not found on
classic records—proceed, my priestess, there are
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few in this assembly who will detect the modern interpolation.”
Gertrude glanced her eye over the card, and
read the sentence aloud, feeling as if her burning
cheek might, even through her mask, betray her
private interpretation.
Your course is well nigh run,
Your prize is almost won,
And the treasure of your bridal day,
Will prove the treasure once cast away.
“Dark enough for Delphos!” exclaimed Roscoe—
“treasure once cast away! Heaven knows that
the good woman commended in scripture did not
more earnestly seek her lost penny than I have
sought the only treasure that ever shall be `the
treasure of my bridal day'—he would have said,
but it was a truth too seriously felt to be lightly
uttered—he faltered, and then laughingly added,
“Oh, it is a lying oracle!”
“Our favors contemned!” exclaimed the Sybil,
“the destinies have misdirected them,” and snatching
the card from Gertrude, she shuffled it in with
the rest, and again elevating the tablets, she dispersed
the leaves among the crowd, that, attracted by
her conspicuous figure, and lofty pretensions, had
gathered about her. “There they go,” she said,
“full of pretty answers!---such as might indeed
`have been got from an acquaintance with Goldsmith's
wives.”'
Roscoe held up the tablet, before Gertrude's eyes,
which he had caught in the general scramble---“It
is the same!” he exclaimed, “there is a fate in this
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which the future shall expound for me,” and with
the deferential air of a devotee, he placed it in his
bosom. Gertrude's heart was throbbing with the
sweetest emotions, when a touch from Mrs. Layton,
directed her attention to an object of sufficient interest
to command her thoughts, even at that moment.
“Is not that Pedrillo?” she whispered, “that
Spanish Knight, with three white ostrich feathers in
his cap.”
“He certainly looks like Pedrillo,” replied Gertrude
in a tremulous voice---“but can he be here?
the ship sailed to-day---Emilie read the advertisement
in the evening paper.”
“That may be—cleared perhaps—but this is certainly
Pedrillo. Observe—no one else would
have so well arranged a Spanish costume. I always
told you his taste was exquisite—it is he, beyond
a doubt—that brilliant cross identifies him, he
once showed it to me—there is not another such in
the country. How he hovers about us—he has one
of my leaves—poor fellow!—I should like to know
his luck. Sir Knight, “she added, raising her
voice “if the destinies are but obedient to the Sybil's
will, thy fate has been fortunate.”
The Knight bowed, haughtily enough for a Castilian,
but vouchsafed no other reply. “There are
horribly portentous predictions among them,” continued
Mrs. Layton. “I would not outrage his
feelings. On what pretext shall we ask to see it?—
not to translate it into Spanish, for I see that African
princes, Indian chiefs, blind girls, deaf and
dumb, all have a gift to read my prophetic words—
do aid me, Gertrude.”
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“My mistress commands me, Sir Knight,” said
Gertrude, “to read aloud your fate.” He gave
her his card, first passing his finger emphatically
across the last line, and she read as follows—`Dangers
beset thee—vengeance pursues thee—blood is in
thy path,
Listen, stranger, to this prophecy of mine,
but fear not,
The blood's another's—the victory is thine!
“Oh, my most tragic flight!” exclaimed the Sybil,
really alarmed at the possible interpretation of her
random prediction. “Indeed, Sir Knight, I designed
that for my friend, the Count here, or some
other carpet hero, who never encounters a worse
danger than an east wind, nor a more fearful vengeance
than a lady's frown.”
“Pardonnez ma Sybille,” exclaimed the Count,
“J'ai mon sort et j'en suis tres content,—ecoutez.”
`Hope flatters—fortune smiles—success awaits
thee.
Then, linger not—the secret NOW disclose
The fair adored will not thy love oppose.”
The Major's imagination was for once carried captive.
The prophecy elevated him far above his native
region of prudence; and availing himself of an
opportunity, which was afforded by the company
falling into ranks and promenading to the music, he
actually committed himself, and in unambiguous
words made an offer, in the full meaning of that
technical term. He had thrown the die that had
remained in his tremulous hand for the twenty years
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that he had fluttered about the successive Cynthias
of the minute; the belles and heiresses, who had
fallen into the oblivion of wives and mothers, without
the boast of an offer from the wary Major.
Not Camillus, when he cast his sword into the scale—
not Cæsar, when he passed the Rubicon—not all
the signers, when they penned their immortal autographs,
felt their souls dilate with snch a mighty
swell, as Major Daisy, when he thus boldly encountered
the possibility of a refusal. What then was
his surprise, to find that Miss Clarence did not, in
the slightest degree, partake his agitation—that
she listened to him, much as one listens to a teller
of dreams! That her feelings were evidently deeply
absorbed in some other subjeet; and that when
obliged to reply to him, she treated his declaration
en badinage as a dramatic part of the masquerade;
and finally, when compelled to answer his reiterated
protestations seriously, she dismissed them as the
tame and wearisome tale of every hour.
“The poor Major! caught in the very net he
had so long, so well escaped; and treated, after all,
as game not worth catching! His heart burned
within him, his head swam, and he stepped short and
high, when he was relieved by Roscoe's approach—
and stammerring out, `my dear sir, I have an engagement—
be good enough to take my place.' He resigned
his position to one who produced as sudden
a change in Gertrude, as if she had been transported
from the north pole to the equator.
Roscoe had lingered near Mrs. Layton, to avail
himself of the permission, accorded by Gertrude in
their last interview, and at the first instant he could
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obtain a private hearing, he said to her, “Tell me,
I entreat you, the name of the lady who personates
your priestess.”
Mrs. Layton, determined to maintain her character,
and sport with the eager curiosity betrayed in
Roscoe's tremulous voice, (she did not suspect how
much deeper was the feeling than curiosity,) replied,
“Do you, presumptuous mortal, inquire my priestess'
name, when you have so long disdained to join the
troop of pilgrims to her shrine—neglected to lay a
single offering on her altar!”
Roscoe assured her—and she could not doubt it—
that he was serious; but the Sybil was obstinate,
and he, impatient of the spell, which he began to despair
of ever breaking, left her and joined Gertrude.
Roscoe certainly did not, like the major, `make
an offer,' nor did he talk of love in any of the prescribed
or accepted terms. But there is a freemasonry
in love—it has its hidden meaning; and we
should despair—if we were bold enough to repeat
the short and low sentences exchanged by our lovers—
we should despair of making them intelligible to
the uninitiated. They would, in all simpleness,
wonder what there was to cast so potent a spell
over the scene, that it vanished from their senses—
what to make Gertrude's cheeks burn, and her hands
cold—to make Roscoe's heart throb in his manly
bosom, and suffuse that eye whose lofty glance could
thrill an assembly of his peers with tears as soft as
ever trembled in a woman's eye. There was no declaration—
no confession—but the dawning consciousness
of being beloved—the first blissful moment
of assurance—a moment for which there is not in all
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the experience of true love a counterpoise or equivalent.
The happy do not need observers, and we leave
them, for those who demand our interest, and certainly
deserve our sympathy.
Emilie Layton was sitting at home alone in the
parlor, apparently quite absorbed in a book that lay
before her, when the opening of the door quickened
her pulses. She did not look up; the door was
closed, and a moment of deep silence followed. It
was her father who had entered, and for one moment
he stood, heart-stricken, gazing on his destined
victim. She was bending over her book, her
brow resting on her hand, a hand that had the fresh
dimpled beauty of childhood. The light of the
astral lamp fell, as if it had been adjusted by a
painter's art, on her golden hair, glowing cheek,
and ivory throat; her beauty would have arrested
the dullest eye, but it was more than her beauty that
at that moment thrilled her father's soul. The
gentle obedience of her life, her danger, her defencelessness—
and he, her natural shield, made the
instrument of her destruction. But it was too late
to recede or to hesitate; any thing, he thought,
would be more tolerable than the pang of the present
moment, and, making a desperate effort, he
said, in a loud voice, that broken and unnatural as
it was, was evidently meant to be gay, “Emilie, my
darling, I have a favor to ask of you—a frolic on
foot—I want you to go to the masquerade with me.
He threw a bundle on the table, “there is a domino
and mask for you.”
“But, papa!”
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“No expostulation, if you please, the carriage is
at the door; no one knows that we are going—we
shall see without being seen, we will come away
whenever you choose—in ten minutes, if you like—
indeed I cannot stay longer. Do you hesitate?
Emilie! it is extraordinary that you will refuse me
this small request!”
“I do not refuse, papa,” she replied, hastily
throwing on the domino, while her voice, her whole
person trembled, almost shivered with emotion. Layton
hurried on his domino. Every motion was like
that of an insane man. He opened the door, “Are
you ready!---are you ready, Emilie?”
“Yes, quite ready.”
Again he shut the door, turned to Emilie, and
throwing his arms around her, he burst into tears,
“Oh, my child, my child---promise me that you will
never curse your father!”
“Curse you, papa!---Every day on my bended
knees do I implore a blessing on you—and I will
while I live—so help me, God—wherever I am,
wherever you are”---
“Wherever I am!” echoed Layton, recoiling
from her and striking his hands together, “I shall
be---O Emilie, Emilie, pity me!”
“Pity you, papa! I do pity you from the bottom
of my heart—you are not well---let me send
away the carriage---we will not go to the masquerade,
will we?”
“We must, Emilie,” he replied, summoning his
resolution. He feared he had already betrayed
himself, and he added, pressing his hand to his
forehead, “my head has been in a whirl---its going
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over now; I took an extra bottle of champaigne to-day,
and my nerves are shattered of late. Throw
on your shawl, my child, and let's be gone.”
Emilie took a shawl that hung over her chair,
her father snatched it from her and threw it across
the room; “That's your mother's!” he exclaimed,
“wear no memorial of your parents, Emilie. Oh,
had your mother possessed one thousandth part of
your goodness, I should never have been the wretch
I am.”
Emilie was impatient to end the frightful scene—
“Here is a shawl of Gertrude, papa,” she said;
“I am ready now.”
“Gertrude Clarence! she is an angel—but angels
have not power to save, why should devils to destroy?”
Emilie made no further reply. She perceived
that every word she uttered served but to increase
the agitation it was meant to allay, and she quietly
preceded her father to the carriage. Not another
syllable was interchanged. The silence was unbroken,
save by a sigh or groan from the miserable
father, such as might have proceeded from a criminal
going to execution, and as with him, `time gallops
withal,' so it seemed to Layton, to impel him
with inexorable speed into that scene where he was
to seal his child's fate. The first and the only object
he saw, when they entered the brilliant assembly,
was the Spanish knight. He too, instantly caught
a glimpse of the two persons he had awaited, with a
restlessness and trepidation that he feared were betraying
his secret purposes, even through his disguise,
and making his way through the crowd, his
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towering plumes nodding above all heads, he approached
them, and touching his hat to Layton, he
placed himself at Emilie's side, and in a whisper
told her that he had at the first glance recognised
her. She made no reply, and they proceeded, with
the tide that set that way, towards the stage. They
passed a Mary of Scotland complaining to Queen
Elizabeth, not of violated faith, but of a smoking
kitchen-chimney; a Sappho bewailing, not the
treachery of her lover, but the loss of a cook;
Sweet Anne Page dancing with an Indian chief, both
in Charraud's best style; and Sir Roger de Coverly
mated with a sultana. But these and all other incongruities
were unnoticed by the trio. Emilie felt
her father's step becoming more and more faltering,
and as her arm, that was locked in his, pressed
against his side, it seemed to her that his throbbing
heart would leap from his bosom. He stopped
as they approached that part of the stage where
her mother retained her station, still the ruling
spirit of the scene. Her spirits were wrought to
the highest pitch by the success of her character—
she kindled in the light of her own genius. Her
sallies were caught and repeated by those who could
comprehend them, and those who would fain appear
to comprehend them—her brilliancy cast a ray of
light even on the dullest and dimmest. Layton felt
that there was something insulting in her careless
gaiety and exultation at a moment when he was
steeped to the very lips in misery. His mind was
in that excited and bewildered state when demons
seem to be its ministering spirits, when every wild
unbidden thought presses with a supernatural force.
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He stood fixedly for an instant, his eyes glaring on
his wife. She was in happy unconsciousness of his
gaze. `I could speak daggers to her,' he thought—
`and I will,' and letting fall Emilie's arm, he
penetrated through the ranks that inclosed his wife,
and said, in a voice she well knew, low and husky
as it was, “One word of true prophecy for all thy
lying inventions, Sybil. `Walk in the light of your
fires, and in the sparks ye have kindled, but this
shall ye have—ye shall lie down in sorrow!' ”
This sudden apparition, and these startling words
so blenched Mrs. Layton's cheek, as to define precisely
the limits of her rouge. She looked after the
speaker, but he had rejoined his companions, and
was lost in the general stream.
Emilie perceived, as her father resumed her arm,
that he seemed lost and uncertain which way to turn
his steps. “You are not well, papa,” she whispered;
“do let us leave this place as soon as possible.”
“We shall leave it soon enough, my child.”
The knight gave him a card; `delay not' was
scrawled upon it. The words seemed to scorch
him as he read them. He obeyed the mandate, and
they retraced their steps towards the lobby. Suddenly
Emilie slackened her pace, and then stopped.
She dropped her pocket handkerchief. A lady who
passed near picked it up, and without appearing
even to look for its right possessor, tied it around
her throat, and Emilie proceeded, unconscious of,
or passively submitting to, the loss.
When they reached the lobby, “Surely, papa,”
said Emilie, faltering, “there is no occasion for
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Mr. Pedrillo to go further with us—his costume attracts
attention.”
“He must go home with you, Emilie,” replied
her father; “I am too ill to attend you—I must
stop at a physician's, and have blood let—Pedrillo,
look for a carriage.” He uttered the premeditated
words mechanically. They were scarcely audible;
but Emilie, whatever might have been her reluctance,
proceeded without any farther remonstrance. It
would have been impossible to say which was most
trembling, most agitated—father, or daughter. As
he assisted her into the carriage, he retained her
hand for a moment, and pressed it fervently to his
lips. Emilie felt his tears gush over it, and springing
forward, she kissed his hand tenderly, and mingled
her tears with his. He groaned aloud. The
knight's impatient foot was already on the step. The
wretched father grasped his arm: “Pedrillo,” he
said, “God have mercy on your soul, as you are
true to my poor child!”
“Amen!” was the only response, but never was
a saint's prayer uttered with a deeper, more fervent,
or more sincere emphasis. The carriage door was
closed, the horses driven swiftly away, and Emilie
sank on the bosom of her companion, exclaiming,
“Oh, Marion, Heaven will forgive my poor father!”
Marion, (for it was in truth Emilie's true love
that personated the Spanish knight,) Marion soothed
her with every suggestion that tenderness could
supply. While they are disencumbering themselves
of every trace of the masquerade, and putting on
their travelling cloaks, hats, &c., previously provided—
while the carriage halts in one of the
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crossstreets leading to Powles Hook, and while four
good steeds are being attached to it, we must
return once more to the masquerade, and to Gertrude
who, in obedience to the preconcerted signal
of the dropped handkerchief, was hastening to
follow her friend. Roscoe was still at Gertrude's
side. We have been compelled to repeated recession,
and long as it may appear since we left him
at that enviable station, the time seemed to him
short as a blissful dream, when Gertrude said, “Mr.
Roscoe, I must put your generous faith to one more
proof—I promise it shall be the last. Will you attend
me to my place of destination?”
Roscoe's faith was for a moment disturbed, and he
frankly expressed his distrust. “You did not surely
come here alone?”
“No, I certainly did not; but I do not see the
person on whom I relied to attend me, and I must
go alone if you hesitate—my engagements will not
permit me one moment's delay.”
“Pardon me,” he said, offering his arm.
“I do pardon you,” she replied, taking it,
“though I perceive you are but half assured.” He
answered nothing till they had left the house, and
made their way through the rabble of hackmen, and
idlers that surrounded the door. “Is this haste necessary?”
he then asked, checking their hurried
pace; “has it any object but to end this brief interview,
and to leave me in the ignorance which I can
no longer endure, and which, permit me to say, after
your promise at our last interview, you ought no
longer to protract?”
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“My haste is essential, Mr. Roscoe, and believe
me, it has no reference to you.”
Roscoe's pride was wounded. “Forgive my presumption.
I certainly ought not to have imagined
that you, who have shown such utter indifference to
my wishes—such an entire want of confidence in
me, should have any farther reference to me, than
as the instrument of your convenience.”
“Mr. Roscoe!”—there was a treacherous tremulousness
in Gertrude's voice. After pausing for
an instant, she proceeded, “You are unkind and
unjust to me—you have not claimed the performance
of my promise. I am at this moment giving
you the strongest proof of my confidence—making
you privy and accessory to a hazardous elopement.”
“An elopement!” exclaimed Roscoe, aghast.
“Yes,” replied Gertrude, smiling; “an elopement—
of which I am a zealous aider and abettor,
and an humble attendant of my principals to Virginia,
our ultimate destination.”
“To Virginia! Then I now claim the fulfilment
of your promise. Roscoe paused, and Gertrude
was as anxious to pronounce the word that would
dispel the mystery, as Roscoe could be to hear it;
but it seemed to her like the word of doom, and
while it hovered unspoken on her trembling lips,
Roscoe continued, I beseech you to end this tormenting
suspense, which I flattered myself the
chances of every day would terminate. Have I not
endured it long enough—patiently enough? For
Heaven's sake, do not walk at this furious rate—if
you knew what efforts my deference to your wishes
has cost me, you would not hesitate. I care not
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what you disclose—my interest in you is independent
of all circumstances and persons other
than yourself—I was proud—fastidious, it may
be. There was a time when I should have shrunk
from the disclosure of a vulgar or obscure name—or
a name allied however remotely to dishonor; but
now, truly I care not for any of these things—my
faith, my hope, my love, centres in you alone.”
Notwithstanding the intense interest with which
Gertrude listened, and notwithstanding Roscoe's
earnest remonstrance, she had not slackened her
speed; and she now saw a carriage awaiting her at
a few paces from her, and Marion, who had descried
her, advancing hastily. She had just time to falter
out a hasty reply to his last words—“Then
is there an end of all motive to further concealment,”
when Marion exclaimed, “For mercy's sake,
make haste, my dear Miss Clarence!”
“Miss Clarence!” exclaimed Roscoe—“Gertrude
Clarence?”
“Yes, Gertrude Clarence—but not a `prize
lady.' ”
Roscoe was dumb for an instant, (seconds were
now precious,) overpowered with thick-coming
thoughts—surprise at this solution of the mystery,
and amazement at his own stupidity—such as is felt
in all inferior riddles—that he had not before discovered
the solution—recollections, anticipations, fears,
and hopes were thronging, and all concentrated in
that one moment.
They were already at the carriage-door—Emilie
had exclaimed joyfully, “Oh Gertrude, you've
come!” and Roscoe had recovered his
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self-possession sufficiently to say to Marion, “Get in first, if
you please—I have one word to say to—Miss Clarence.”
“But a single word, I entreat,” replied Marion;
“there is no time to lose.”
“In one word then,” whispered Roscoe; “may
I follow you?”
Gertrude uttered that precious monosyllable, worth
in some cases the whole English language besides,
and sprang into the carriage, but not till Roscoe had
pressed her hand to his lips, and breathed out a
“God bless you”—the shortest and best of all benedictions.
Marion was drawing up the blind, when Emilie
stopped him, while she entreated Roscoe, who stood
as if he were transfixed beside the carriage, to return
to the masquerade, and attend her mother home,
but on no account to betray his knowledge of their
departure.
Roscoe promised. The blind was again drawn
up, and the carriage hastily driven to a boat in waiting,
which conveyed them without any delay to
Powles Hook, whence they proceeded on their
southern route.
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CHAPTER XIV.
“Il me semble qu'il y a des friponneries si heureuses que tout
le monde les pardonne.”
Voltaire.
[figure description] Page 243.[end figure description]
Pedrillo deviated from his best policy when he
communicated the secret of his conspiracy to his
man Denis, and permitted him to extend it to Justine.
Denis, it is true, was a well tried tool of his master,
who had never been betrayed into infidelity by
any impulses or meltings of nature. But Justine
was of a softer temper—a woman, with a woman's
sympathies and affections. All these Denis had artfully
enlisted in his master's cause, by making her
believe they were only righting the wrongs of true
love, and inflicting on Miss Emilie the penalty of her
broken faith. The present violence being thus adjusted
in Justine's feminine scales, her imagination
was easily seduced by the brilliant perspective of
honors and wealth that awaited her young lady, and
of which she, the satellite and lesser light, would
partake in liberal measure.
Her conscience was thus made tolerably quiet,
but she had another anxiety that she could not so
easily put to rest. She had, as has been seen, secured
a sum for her parents which was more than an
equivalent for the avails of her services; but she loved
the old people with a true, filial love, and though,
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as she said and repeated to herself a thousand times,
`it was according to the course of nature to leave
father and mother, and cleave to the husband,' yet
it was most unnatural and brutish to quit them, and
perhaps for ever, without their consent and blessing.
She revolved this in her mind, till it was filled with
sad misgivings and superstitious presages; and at
last, to quiet her heart, she stole to her mother, and
poured all its secrets into her bosom.
Her painful but affectionate confidence—nothing
melts a woman's heart like a voluntary confidence—
her confessed and true love for Denis—was there
ever woman, young or old, who had not a chord to
vibrate to the `ringing of the true metal?'—her disclosure
of her lover's and his master's almost incredible
liberality all swayed the mother to a passive acquiescence
in Justine's wishes. She gave the asked
consent, and the craved blessing, and promised to reconcile
her father, who was old and in his dotage,
to her departure.
Success and happiness had a common effect. Justine
became communicative to excess. At first, she
had only sketched the outlines of the conspiracy—
she now went on to detail all, to the minutest particulars,
including in these the magnificent dress Mr.
Pedrillo was to wear to the masquerade, and even
the name of the humble artisan who was to be its
fabricator.
Justine's mother listened to this plot with a strong
and natural curiosity, and in her interest in its contrivance
and result, and in her daughter's part in
the drama, she lost every other consideration. But
solitary reflection has a marvellous efficacy in
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adjusting the balance of justice; and when left alone,
a sense of Miss Layton's violated rights dawned
upon her—and being an upright and kind-hearted
creature, she found that her previous knowledge of
the affair was a participation in its guilt, that was
like to prove an intolerable burden to her conscience.
What was to be done? She was pledged to Justine—
she had given her consent—that she might retract;
but she had given her blessing—that was
an appeal to Heaven; and according to her simple
faith, as she afterwards expressed it to Gertrude,
`what was once sent up there, could not be taken
back again.' She knew Miss Clarence, and was
bound to her by ties of gratitude; and after much
painful deliberation, she determined to obtain a private
interview with her, and disclose the whole affair.
This she immediately effected; first binding Miss
Clarence, by a solemn promise, that whatever measures
were taken to counteract the plot, they should
not be such as would prevent Justine's peaceable
departure with her lover, nor, if possible to avoid it,
such as would publicly disgrace Pedrillo.
Miss Clarence listened to the tale with horror.
That Pedrillo, a man unfettered by principle, without
ties or responsibilities to the country, and stimulated
by love, disappointment, and resentment,
should contrive this abduction, did not surprise her;
but that Emilie's father should be an accessory to
the crime, implied a degree of iniquity beyond her
belief. A little reflection, however, convinced her that
the tale `was o'er true.' She recollected expressions
that had escaped Layton, which indicated that he was
in Pedrillo's power, in a more alarming sense than
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would be implied by pecuniary obligations. The
old woman's story explained his absenting himself
from the house since her memorable interview with
him in the library, and accounted for his wild and
haggard appearance on the only occasion on which
she had since seen him, and when he had studiously
avoided her. Her own good sense, and preference of
straight forward proceedings, would have led her at
once to disclose her knowledge of the affair to all
the parties concerned, and to counsel Emilie to
give Marion, without delay, a legal right to protect
her. But she was hampered by her promise to
the old woman; and knowing that Pedrillo was under
the inevitable necessity of leaving the country on Monday
night, she hoped it was possible, as it certainly
was most desirable, so to manage his relations with
Layton, that there should be no explosion between
them. She determined to communicate with Marion,
assured that she might trust to his zeal whatever
plan they adopted to secure safety to Emilie.
Marion came at her summons, and never did two
gray-headed counsellors deliberate more cautiously
on the means to preserve a nation, than they on the
best plan to be adopted; but they were many years
from gray hairs, and it was not strange that a little
romance should have mingled in their project.
They agreed that Layton must no longer be allowed
the custody of his daughter, and Marion eloquently
pleaded his right to assume the trust, and
urged various and cogent reasons in favor of conveying
Emilie to his mother's dignified protection.
This might be effected, if Miss Clarence would give
the sanction of her presence to their elopement.
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Gertrude's heart, at this moment, clung to New
York; but she sacrificed unhesitatingly her own inclinations,
and acquiesced cordially in his proposition.
After discussing and dismissing various plans, it
was at last decided that Marion should employ the
person who already had Pedrillo's order, to make
for him a fac simile of the dress directed by
Pedrillo; that farther, this person should be induced,
by an adequate reward, to delay sending
home Pedrillo's dress an hour beyond the stipulated
time. It would perhaps be more accurate to say,
that the punctuality to Marion was paid for—the
breach of that virtue being in the common course
of things, and therefore not liable to awaken Pedrillo's
suspicions.
The precious hour thus secured was to allow the
parties time enough to meet at the masquerade, and
to escape from it far beyond (as they, presumptuously
trusted) any further pursuit or annoyance
from Pedrillo. They would fain have hit upon
some scheme that would have saved the miserable
parent from proceeding to an overt act in this
guilty combination, but this seemed the only one by
which Emilie's safety could be compatible with his
preservation from the fatal consequences of a rupture
with Pedrillo. Every particular was arranged
before a disclosure was made to Emilie.
As soon as she recovered from her first shock
of grief, and alarm, she remonstrated. Anxious
as she was to escape from the toils set for her, she
shrunk from being even the passive instrument of
dyeing her father more deeply in sin. To the last,
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she continued unwilling and irresolute, and finally,
and notwithstanding her lover's previous and earnest
injunctions, when she saw her father's struggles,
her tender heart was melted; and like all timid
animals, feeling her courage rise in extremity of
danger, she had, as has been seen, entreated him
not to go to the masquerade, nobly willing to encounter
danger herself, to save her parent from
crime. But whichever way he turned, there was no
possible redemption for him, and he pursued the
path marked out by his evil genius to his own destruction.
After he had parted from his child, as his agonized
conscience truly whispered, for ever, he experienced
for a little time a horrible species of relief.
The last and worst act was done. Resistance was
over. Like the angels expelled from heaven, he
no longer contended with good spirits; he was no
longer solicited by the pleadings of nature—the
voice of God. A sort of torpor stole over him, and
scarcely conscious of any motion of his will or body,
he turned his steps towards his old haunt at the
club-room. A disordered countenance was no novelty
there, and attracted no attention. His associates
were engaged in a game of desperate chances.
He joined them. Fortune smiled upon him, but he
was far beyond her influence. He looked upon the
monstrous winnings he was accumulating, with the
glazed unnoticing eye with which a man, walking
in his sleep, regards outward objects; but the
sleeper awakened on the brink of a precipice hanging
over an unfathomable abyss, would not more
suddenly have changed his aspect, than did Layton;
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his dull eye flashed, his cheeks became crimson and
livid in an instant, as the door opened, and Pedrillo
appeared before him, the same Spanish knight,
as he believed, to whom he had one hour before
resigned his daughter. Layton started up and
grasped Pedrillo's arm, and would have said,
“Where is she?” but the words choked him. Pedrillo
shook him off as if he were a reptile. He
staggered back and leaned against the wall, while
Pedrillo, with the coolness of a savage who can
torture and be tortured without a sign of emotion,
turned to the gamblers, whose interest in their game
was for the moment suspended, and detailed to them
with clearness and precision the history of his relations
with Layton, from their first meeting to this
moment. Layton stood with his eyes fixed, motionless,
almost senseless. He did not hear the but
half-smothered execrations of his associates, when
they were told how he had duped and defrauded
them. That tale, that exposure—so dreaded—
avoided at such horrible cost, fell now unheeded as
household words. He did not hear the outcries at
his parental treachery. He stood like a man upon
a wreck, deaf to the last groans and struggles of the
sinking ship; but as that man might strain his eye
after a little boat in which he had embarked his
child, so did his soul cling to that one treasure that
might still ride out the storm that was engulfing
himself. He made no denial, no protestation, no appeal;
he was perfectly silent, till Pedrillo stated that
Layton had finally crowned all his other treacheries
with perfidy to him. “I deny it,” he exclaimed,
“by all that's holy, I deny it—I gave her into
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his possession—God help her as I speak the truth!—
where is she?—in Heaven's name, Pedrillo, tell
me where she is?”
Pedrillo's passions now burst forth with tenfold
fury for his previous calmness. He exhausted every
name of infamy, every form of anathema upon Layton,
“Tell you where she is!” he concluded, “did
I not, after waiting an eternity for my cursed tailor,
go to the masquerade, and look and wait in vain for
you?—did I not then go to your house, and receive
from your servants the tale you had prepared? I
returned to the masquerade and again sought you,
in vain. I spoke to your wife—she professed ignorance
of every thing; she dared to sport, and laugh
at my demands; but I have spoken a word in her
ear that has ended her sport for ever. I understand
ye—you believed that at the last you might deceive
me with impunity. You flattered yourself that I
could not stay in the country after to-night—but I
will stay—I will have revenge, if I perish in the fire
I kindle.”
Layton was at first confounded and bewildered
by the appearance of Pedrillo. He firmly believed
that Emilie was in his power, for that he had the
testimony of his senses. He was confused by the
horror of some new and unthought of form of misery
or dishonor to his daughter; and it was not till
after Pedrillo's repeated declarations that the truth
stole upon him. “I too have been deceived!” he
exclaimed, and added, in a faltering voice, “thank
God!—thank God!” He attempted to raise his
hand to his throbbing head, but his mind and body
were exhausted. He had no strength to resist a
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new emotion, and he sunk under it, and fell lifeless
at Pedrillo's feet.
Pedrillo spurned him as if he were a dead dog,
and without replying to the exclamations that burst
from every tongue, he rushed out of the house, and
returned to Mrs. Layton's.
He found Mrs. Layton in the parlor, stretched on
the sofa, in violent hysterics. Roscoe, who had attended
her home, and whom she had entreated not
to leave her, was walking up and down the room,
meditating, as it might be, for such reflections are
natural to a man in his position, on the singular
channels in which some women's sensibilities flow;
or, we rather suspect, if it could be known, and
might be told, that he was thinking no more of Mrs.
layton nor of her concerns, than if she belonged to
another planet.
At the sound of Pedrillo's footsteps she started
from her women, who were chafing her temples and
hands, and taking up an open letter that lay beside
her, she threw it to him, saying, with a terrified
look, “Read that, Mr. Pedrillo—you will then be
convinced that I have had no concern in this unhappy
affair.”
The letter was from Emilie, and contained a brief
communication of her intentions, and an explanation
of the reasons for her clandestine departure.
She had left the letter with one of the maids, with
an express order that it should not be given to her
mother till the next day. The girl was terrified by
her mistress's nervous convulsions, and fancying
that she must die if she had not present relief, and
hoping the letter might prove the panacea, she
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produced it. The hysterics continued, for they were
caused by anxieties more immediately selfish than
any thing that concerned her child.
Pedrillo glanced his eye over the letter—“On
the southern road”—he murmured, “by Heaven,
I'll follow them!” He rushed out of the house, reinvigorated
by a new purpose, which he conceived
and executed with the rapidity of a man accustomed
to the sudden vicissitudes of a desperate life. His
men, men of proof, were still awaiting him at their
assigned post. He selected the two cleverest and
most daring, and mounting them and himself upon
the three fleetest and strongest horses to be procured,
he crossed the ferry to Powles Hook, and followed
on the track of our travellers. They were
two or three hours ahead of him, but he calculated
rightly that after the first stage they would have no
apprehensions of being pursued, and would either
proceed leisurely, or stop for the night.
Pedrillo's companions did not at all relish their
partnership in this wild affair. Their passions were
not stimulated, nor their judgments obscured by
any personal interest, and they saw clearly the rashness
and folly of the enterprise. But they dared
not speak out boldly. “What, captain,” asked
one of them, “is your plan, if we overtake these
runaways? this is no country for our trade. It will
be an awkward business. Have you thought how
we are to manage?”
“Yes; I have thought of every thing.”
“That we have to traverse a settled country, and
pass a ferry?”
“Yes; and if the country were settled with
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legions of devils, and the ferry led to the infernal regious,
it should not stop me—listen to my plan.
We shall probably overtake them on the road—
one of you can do with a drivelling, unarmed coachman—
if there is time, and convenient place, bind
him to a tree—if not, despatch him, we have no time
to waste. The fellow in the carriage will make a
stout resistance, but short—he is not likely to be
armed, such precautions are rare, and rarely needed
in this country. When he is done for”—Pedrillo
paused, `I will not,' he thought, give her this
excuse for hating me,'—“No, my men; if it can
be helped, we will shed no blood; I think ye have
no appetite for that—bind him too,—maim him, if
necessary, to secure us from pursuit.”
“And is there not an extra lady to be disposed
of?”
“Yes; we must take her with us.”
“But, is it prudent to encumber our flying retreat
with any superfluous baggage?”
“She will not encumber us—we must go in the
carriage. If we leave her, she will release the men,
and contrive some means to overcome us at last, for
she is as ingenious as the devil.”
“Well, we shall have a merry company of them,
if we ever get to our good ship again. We left the
priest tying Denis to a neat little damsel he brought
on board this evening. But the carriage, captain;
how are we to navigate a land vessel?”
This questioning and demurring was quite new
to Pedrillo, used to absolute command, and implicit
obedience, and he began to grow restive under it;
but he prudently smothered his rising wrath, and
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replied, “I am something more than a mere seaman—
I can manage four or six in hand, as well as the
ropes of a ship. I shall put on the coachman's
coat, and mount the box. And more, since you are
terrified with the spectre of a ferry—know that we
shall not retrace our steps, but strike across to
Perth Amboy; I have ordered the boat to come
through the Kills and meet us there—are you content?”
“If we were sure not to find the horses jaded?”
“And if we do! have we not here three first
rates, that we could drive to Philadelphia before we
should be overtaken?”
“But three are not four, captain.”
“The devil, man! do you think to stop me with
straws? shall we not find one of all their four, sea-worthy?”
“Well then, captain, if we overhaul them on the
road, in a solitary place, before day-light, we may
capture them; but supposing they are hauled up,
in a snug harbor, where there are perhaps twice or
thrice our number of men to aid them; will you
not then tack about?”
“No, by my soul! if they are protected by a regiment
of men and devils, I will not tack about—I
have staked my life on this die.”
“But we have not ours,” muttered one of the
men.
“Then stop, both of ye,” cried Pedrillo, reining
in his horse. They halted theirs, and he rode in front
of them. “Go back,” he said, “but not to the ship;
you share neither danger nor spoil with me more—
I promised ye, and you know I never yet have broke
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my faith to you—I promised ye more gold than
your souls are worth—but go—seek another service,
and a more generous master. I can do my work
alone—a thousand cowards could not help me. I
feel the strength of twenty good men in my right
arm—come Triton.” His little dog leaped up at his
call, and received a caress. “My brave Triton! I
have still one faithful follower. Let them go—better
alone, than with those who fear to follow us.”
He rode forward; the men fell into earnest debate;
they had, at bottom, a superstitious faith in
Pedrillo's invincibility. The first act of cowardice
is as painful to men of daring, as an act of courage
to a coward; timid as they proved in a landservice,
they could not endure the thought of returning
no more to the exciting dangers, and merry revels
of their good ship; the reward, the gold glittered
as they were relaxing their grasp of it; and
finally, they spurred on their horses, overtook Pedrillo,
and stammering out their apologies, they
assured him they would `do or die' in his service.
He received their proffers rather as a favor to them,
than important to himself; but he understood his
art too well, not to keep their courage up to the
sticking point, by fixing their eyes on the success
and reward of their enterprise.
They had travelled more than three hours; had
passed the road that strikes from the main route to
Amboy, and were not very far from Brunswick,
when Pedrillo began to manifest great anxiety.
Their dangers multiplied, every mile they receded
from Amboy. The moon was rising. He looked
at his watch. “It is four o'clock;” he said, “in
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two hours we shall have day-light; spur on your
horses, my men; our fate must be decided before
the morning—ha! stop! Is not that a carriage
standing before an inn?” They strained their
eyes to define the distant object, and slowly approaching,
they all pronounced it to be a carriage.
“Were the horses attached to it?” was the next
query; they were not.
“By my soul!” said Pedrillo, “I believe we
have them!—softly, my men, we'll dismount and
reconnoitre—here is a ruined shed, we will leave
our horses here. We must approach cautiously—
there are lights glimmering about the tavern—I will
precede you a few yards. I can ascertain at a
glance, if the persons whom I seek are here. If
you hear me whistle, join me instantly—obey whatever
order I shall give you—be up to your own
mark, my good fellows—I ask no more.”
Pedrillo slowly proceeded. In his eagerness he
had forgotten that his little spaniel who, as usual, followed
him, might betray him by the tinkling of his
bells, and he took him in his arms, and kept his
hand on them. Many a scene of danger and blood
had he encountered without a variation of his pulse—
many a peril imminent and desperate, without a
shrinking or foreboding—but now his stout heart
throbbed like a coward's—he felt that it was the
moment of fate to him; almost unconsciously he
slackened his pace, and midway between his companions
and the inn he stopped. The fretted vault
of heaven hung over him in its clear and inexpressible
beauty. The moon was unobscured. If there
be a religious light, it is that she casts over the
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hushed earth. Not a sound broke the all-pervading
stillness. The sleep of winter reigned over nature;
and yet to Pedrillo's startled conscience there was
in this deep silence a loud accusing voice; on the
beautiful arch of Heaven a hand-writing against
him. “I am a wretch,” he murmured, “an outcast—
a solitary vagrant on earth, working mischief
to the only being I love—and loved myself by
none.” The little spaniel, as if in intelligent reply
to his master's words, reared his head from his bosom,
and laid it fondly to his cheek—the tears gushed
from Pedrillo's eye, the spontaneous response of
nature to the touch of true affection. “You love
me, Triton—poor fellow! if I perish, one creature
on God's earth will cry over the moulds that cover
me.” The dog whimpered. He understood the
feeling, if not the words, expressed in the broken
tones of his master's voice—“hush, Triton, hush—
we are both turning drivellers—our work waits for
us;” and repressing his gracious feeling, he pressed
on to the execution of his diabolical purpose.
As soon as he was near enough to the house accurately
to distinguish objects, he perceived that the
inn was a small edifice, which could only supply
accommodation to very few persons, and therefore
that he had no reason to apprehend the opposition
of numbers; and on approaching nearer, he saw the
figures of two females, or rather their shadows, defined
on the slight curtains that obscured the windows
of a small upper apartment, which was lighted
by a brilliant pine fire. These persons might be,
he was sure, after a moment's intense observation,
they were, Emilie Layton and Miss Clarence. The
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room beneath was lighted too; he drew near one of
its windows, and then all uncertainty ended, for there
sat Marion before a comfortable fire, the relics of a
supper on a table behind him, and he lost in a lover's
reveries. His face expressed the glowing satisfaction
of a man who has just secured his dearest object
in life. A little blue silk hood of Emilie, and
a pink silk handkerchief, that Pedrillo had often
seen tied around her throat, hung over a chair beside
her lover. Marion took the hood in his hand,
held it before him, looked at it fondly, turned it
round and round, rolled the strings over his finger,
laid it down---took up the pink handkerchief---kissed
it---folded it most accurately---kissed it again,
and laid it next his heart. Young men will forgive
him, and old men too, if they remember the
fantastic manifestations of their youthful tenderness—
but so did not Pedrillo---he wanted but this to stimulate
his jealousy, and all his fearful passions to
the overt act.
Our travellers had arrived at the inn, after a rapid
and incessant drive, about an hour before. Marion
believed they were beyond the least chance of pursuit,
and fearful the ladies would be exhausted by
fatigue, he had decided to stop for a few hours' repose.
The inn was kept by a widow and her
daughters, whose reluctance to be disturbed at so
unseasonable an hour, was overcome by an extraordinary
compensation, and the assurance, in answer
to their objection that the only man in the establishment
was absent, that the coachman would perform
all the services the horses required. Accordingly,
he did so; and after doing justice to a cold
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sparerib the maidens set before him, and whetting their
curiosity, in regard to the travellers, to the keenest
edge by his oracular answers to their queries, he retired,
to the only lodging that could be afforded
him, in the hay-loft over his horses.
The ladies withdrew to their apartment, after first
talking over their plan for the next day; the probable
hour of their arrival at Philadelphia; and
whether, as Marion urged, Emilie should permit
him to lead her to the altar there, or as Emilie wished,
and Gertrude counselled, the marriage should
be deferred till their arrival at his mother's.
Marion was obliged to content himself with a
rocking-chair in the parlor, as the only other unoccupied
apartment was a little bed-room, to which
there was no access but through the ladies' apartment.
When Gertrude and Emilie were in their own
room, they seated themselves to warm their feet, and
curl their hair; offices that heroines perform in common
with baser metal. Gertrude had her own treasure
of sweet recollections, and bright hopes, and
for a moment she forgot there was any shade over
Emilie's destiny. Poor Emilie sat looking intently
in the fire, abstracted, and anxious. “Why so sad?”
said Gertrude, kissing her.
Emilie dropped her head on her friend's lap, and
burst into tears. “Oh Gertrude, I have such a load
at my heart!”
“But why, now when we are beyond all danger—
and you have been so tranquil and cheerful
till now?”
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“I know it, Gertrude; but when I am with Randolph,
the present moment seems all enough and for
me—I do not think of any thing absent, or past, or
to come.”
“And your friend has no such power over
you?”
“Forgive me, dearest Gertrude—you are the very
best friend in the world, and you whose friendship is
so much stronger than any one's else, when you
come to feel what love is, then you will understand
me—I am sure I can't explain it. But now I am away
from Randolph, my thoughts turn back to my poor
father—to his distracted look—and at the last he
was so tender to me. He must have been desperately
involved with Pedrillo, or he never would
have consented to sacrifice me. And my mother!
Only think, Gertrude, how gay she was! how little
she thought of what the morrow might bring to her!
Oh Gertrude, I know—I know that evil and sorrow
are before me—Hark! did you not hear a whistle?”
“Pshaw!—no, Emilie—you can fancy you hear
any sound when your imagination is excited.”
Emilie did not listen to Gertrude; her head was
advanced like a startled fawn's—her hand on Gertrude's
arm. She pressed it. “There—again—
hush—low tinkling bells like Triton's.” She
started to her feet—“It is Pedrillo!”
“Gracious God, save us!” screamed Gertrude,
and springing to the door, she turned the key, and
secured a momentary protection. The sound of
the bells had been immediately succeeded by the
bursting open of the entry-door, and a loud, rapid
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command from Pedrillo to his men, to seize Marion,
who had heard the previous sounds, and was advancing
to the door.
Three women, from the kitchen, rushed into the
entry. Pedrillo presented a pistol, and they fled
like scared pigeons. At a step he mounted the stairs,
and while he was standing beating against the
door, Gertrude forced Emilie, who was nearly lifeless,
into the inner room, and bade her turn the
lock, which she had just time to do before Pedrillo
burst into the apartment. His eye glanced wildly
around. “Where is she?” he exclaimed; and instantly
he felt that his question was answered by
Gertrude's erect figure standing like a statue, as
pale and as fixed, against the door of the inner
apartment. Pedrillo was struck by her lofty glance
and determined air. He had never coped with heroism
in such a shape, and he shrunk as he would
not have done from an armed enemy. But the homage
was momentary. “Suffer me to pass, Miss
Clarence,” he said, “compel me not to further violence.”
“I would prevent you from further violence—
have you forgotten every thing gentlemanly, manly,
that you dare, like a common ruffian, to force yourself
into our apartment?”
“I did not come here to reason or palter with
you, Gertrude Clarence. I came here to right my
wrongs—to have revenge for treachery; stand back,
I command you, on peril of your life!”
“I will not move one inch, till you promise
me”—
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“Promise you!” he cried, interrupting her with
a scornful shout; “do you think me a child, or
fool, to be resisted by a woman!” and holding her
off with one arm, he thrust his shoulder against the
door, and burst it open with a single effort. Emilie
was on her knees, her hands clasped, and her eyes
fixed. He seized her arm. “Traitress! I have you
now, and for ever!” Her hands relaxed, her arms
fell, and every sign of life vanished. Gertrude received
her lifeless form in her arms. “Monster!
you have killed her,” she shrieked.
Pedrillo laid his hand on her heart. “It beats,”
he said, “she will recover presently. Holloa there!
my men! find the coachman instantly—order him
to put to the horses; if he resists, put your pistols
to his head—no delay!”
The sound of the contest below with Marion had
just ceased. Surprised and unarmed as he was, he
had made a brave resistance. The men, according
to Pedrillo's order, had forborne to fire on him. He
opposed their weapons with such implements of defence
as the apartment supplied; and though repeatedly
wounded, and drenched in blood, he had
forced his way to the stair-case, when a new uproar
broke out. Pedrillo's last command to his men was
answered by the discharge of two pistols, and the
instant appearance of Roscoe before him.
Pedrillo drew a dirk, and sprang towards him.
Roscoe was well armed, and they met in desperate
encounter. But the strife was unequal. What was
Roscoe, who had never handled any weapon but the
guarded foil, and that in the holiday exercise of the
fencing-school, against an adversary practised and
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accomplished in the use of every mortal weapon,
and accustomed to sudden assaults and desperate defences?
Roscoe fought, it is true, with the impulse
of a good cause—and so have many others, brave
and noble, fought and fell. But he fought in a presence
that was inspiration. His eye had met Gertrude's—
had met her glance of tenderness, horror,
and dread. She still supported Emilie in her
arms, Emilie looking like a victim to be avenged,
rather than a living creature to be saved. Pedrillo
made repeated thrusts, vigorous and skilful. Roscoe
parried them all; neither gained any perceptible
advantage, till by a sudden turn Pedrillo disarmed
him. Gertrude's eye fell, and she uttered a cry that
pierced Roscoe's soul. Again she looked, and Pedrillo
too was disarmed, and they had grappled.
Another instant, and Pedrillo was conscious that
Roscoe was gaining the ascendancy. “Here, my
men!” he cried.
“There are more here!” was the answer.
“Ha!—stab them—shoot them down—spare
none!” A death-cry and a heavy fall immediately
followed.”
“Randolph is killed!” shrieked Gertrude. The
name, the words, roused Emilie like one awakened
from the dead. She opened her eyes, gazed wildly
around, clasped her arms around Gertrude's neck,
and hid her face on her bosom. Roscoe's eye involuntarily
turned towards them. Pedrillo profited
by this impulse of treacherous tenderness, extricated
his right arm, and drew a Spanish knife from
beneath his vest—another breath, and he would have
buried it in Roscoe's bosom, but his arm was
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palsied; drops of sweat started on his forehead, the
blood in his swollen veins curdled, his crimson face
changed to a livid paleness, for at that instant his
father—his father, wounded and pressed by one of
his men, fell across the threshold of the door. The
ruffian stepped back to give force to a blow he was
aiming with the muzzle of his pistol, at the old man's
head, when Pedrillo shouted—“hold! stop! on
your life do not harm him!”
Roscoe saw the sudden change, and felt that Pedrillo
had become as impotent as a sick child in his
grasp. He released him. Pedrillo staggered towards
his accomplice. The fellow stared at him, as
if the curse of heaven were visible on his pallid brow.
“Where is your comrade?” demanded Pedrillo.
“Dead!”
“Fly then, to Amboy. Tell our good fellows
that I died no coward death. Tell them I fell by
the hand of a brave man.”—He plunged the knife
into his own bosom, and fell at his father's feet. The
man did not wait to see the issue, but unopposed,
obeyed his master's last command.
The younger Flint was of the rescuing party,
and had done his part bravely. When Pedrillo
gave the command to shoot down the assailants, one
of the ruffians aimed his pistol at the old man. Flint
struck the wretch's arm. The pistol went off; but
the bullet, instead of reaching its destined aim,
passed through his comrade's head. The poor creature,
in his dying agony extended his arms, clasped
Flint and fell with him; Flint under, and nearly
strangled in his death-grasp. As soon as he
could extricate himself, he flew up stairs.
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The work was done there. His father, regardless
of his own slight wound, was assisting Roscoe
to remove Pedrillo to the bed. There they laid
him. His eyes were closed, and he appeared senseless.
They tried in vain to staunch his wound.
His little dog jumped on the bed, whimpered,
cried most piteously, and alternately looked in his
master's face and licked his wound.
The old man reverently clasped his hands, “Oh
God,” he ejaculated, “have mercy on his soul!—
Forgive him, who has had no mercy on himself!”
He paused, laid his hand on Pedrillo's brow, already
covered with the dews of death. “Oh, my son,
my son!” he continued, would that I had died for
thee! Through grace, I am ready to meet my
Judge; I have an honest account to render; poor
fellow, you've a fearful reckoning—robbery and
murder, on land, and on sea!—Oh, God have mercy
on you!”
“Father of mercies!” exclaimed the younger
Flint, whose senses, till now, had been confounded,
“this is not Isaac—is it?”
“Even so, Duty. I did not mean you should
have known it, but I forgot myself. It is a grievous
task to see a son and brother sinking into the
grave with such a load of guilt upon him.” The
old man again clasped his hands, and raised his
eyes in silent prayer. Pedrillo unclosed his eyes,
glared wildly around, then fixed them on his father,
and murmured faintly, “it is too late!”
At this manifestation of life from his master, the
little spaniel became louder and more earnest in his
expressions of love and distress. “Poor fellow!
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---poor Triton!” said Pedrillo. “Will some of you,
for the love of Heaven, give me a sharp pen-knife?—
there is a chord that I would loosen.” Young Flint
opened his knife, and gave it to him. “Hold up
your head, my poor fellow,”—he continued to Triton.
The dog fixed his eye on his master's, and stretched
his head towards him, and Pedrillo, with a sudden
convulsive effort, drew the knife under his ear,
and separated the carotid artery. The animal
gasped, extended his tongue to lick his master's
hand, and expired.
Exclamations of horror and pity burst forth. Pedrillo
replied to them, with a ghastly smile, and
stroking the dog, “poor Triton,” he said, “you
shall never be kicked nor caressed by another master—
bury us in the same grave, if ye would do
grace to the only prayer of a dyiug man.”
“The only prayer!—oh, my son, my son!” cried
the old man, “now—now while you have reason
and breath—now implore your Maker's forgiveness!”
“And what good would it do? Is not the decree
written against me, `ye shall be judged according
to your deeds?' Can I restore innocence to
the tempted?—can I give back the spoils to the spoiled?—
can I fill again the veins of the murdered?—
Oh no.” His voice became choaked and hollow,
his features ghastly and distorted. “One word to
you, sir,” he continued to his father, but father he
did not call him, his lips did not attempt that sacred
name. “In my pocket-book are papers that will
acquaint you with my affairs—you will have countless
gold.”
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“Gold!—poor creature! I do not want it—
God forbid I should ever touch your ill-gotten
gold!”
“Build hospitals and churches, then—they may—
hereafter—get my soul out of torment—some good
men say so—but now, when revenge and hate, and
passions I have not breath to name, are raging within
me”—he laid his father's hand over his fluttering
heart—“when hell is here, oh, how shall I escape!”
The convulsions of death spread through his
frame. In his fearful struggle, he rose almost erect,
and the last involuntary prayer of helpless man,
burst from lips, that one moment before, refused to
utter it—“Oh God! mercy! mercy!”
-- 268 --
CHAPTER XV.
“Do not hurry your finishing! Allow us some glimpses of that
terra incognita—a heroine's establishment.”
A Young Lady's Unpublished Letters.
[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]
We were glad to drop the curtain over a scene,
that we would fain spare friends and foes—the deathbed
of the wicked—the saddest spectacle of human
life.
Little remains to be told to those who may have
graced us with their company thus far in our narrative,
or to those who disdaining our chase of humble
game, have just opened our book to be in at the
death.
Roscoe, it may be remembered, was at Mrs.
Layton's, and heard Pedrillo's declaration that he
would follow the fugitive. He resolved to follow
likewise. If Pedrillo really carried his mad threat
into execution, he should be near to afford assistance.
In any event he should be near to—Gertrude
Clarence. He first went to Flint's lodgings.
Flint, as he knew, would be a willing auxiliary, and
in case of need a fearless and efficient one. He
found our good-natured friend for once in ill-humor.
He had relinquished the masquerade, a spectacle
that his curiosity burned to witness, for the
superior pleasure of passing the evening tête-à-tête
with Miss Clarence. Even Flint, under the influence
of the `tricksy spirit,' grew a little sentimental
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and shy of observation. But, lo! when after having
made his toilet with unusual elaborateness, he
went to Mrs. Layton's, he was told Miss Clarence was
not at home. `The course of true love never did
run smooth,' thought Flint, as he retraced his way
sulkily to his lodging, and there he sat down to listen,
with an indifference quite foreign to his lively spirit,
to his father's tales of elder times. These were suddenly
broken off by Roscoe's entrance.
Roscoe briefly explained his errand. Flint was
all alive to the enterprise. “How fortunate you
came for me,” he whispered to Roscoe; “don't
mention it—it is not proper to be told yet—I am as
good as engaged to Miss Clarence.”
Roscoe started; the shock was momentary, he
smiled at his own credulity, and said mentally, `My
self-complacent, sanguine friend; as good as engaged—
far better, not engaged.'
As they were departing Roscoe perceived that
the elder Flint had armed himself with a bludgeon,
and intended joining them. Roscoe remonstrated.
The old man took him aside, and communicated his
secret reasons. Roscoe feared they might be retarded
by this addition to their party, but he could
not refuse his assent. His fears however were
groundless. The old man's energetic habits and
excited feeling enabled him, though not so well
mounted, to keep up with his companions; and such
was the rapidity of their pursuit, that when Pedrillo
dismounted, they were not a mile behind him.
Roscoe, as may be imagined, had not remained
idly gazing on the dying man, while Gertrude needed
his assistance. She and Emilie were conveyed
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to another apartment, where the women attended
them with such restoratives as the house afforded,
but these were not probably so efficient as the
assurance—for Emilie had recovered her consciousness—
that their lovers were near them and in
safety.
Marion's wounds, though they witnessed that he
had proved himself a true knight in the contest,
were not alarming; and measures were immediately
taken for the return of all parties to town, and for
avoiding, as far as possible, publicity of the painful
circumstances of the past night.
A coroner's inquest was summoned to sit on the
body of Pedrillo. Previous to presenting the facts
of the case, Roscoe inquired of the elder Flint if
he meant to persevere in the resolution he had declared
to his dying son. He replied that he did.
“Had you not better,” suggested Roscoe, “defer
your ultimate decision; it will be perfectly easy to
establish your claim to the property—after more deliberation
your feelings may change?”
“For that very reason, my young friend, I choose
to make my decision now. I have made it a rule,
and it has carried me safe so far, to obey the first
decision of conscience; you may reason and tamper
with it, and soften it down; but take it at its
word, its first bold honest word. It makes me shudder
to think even of handling the poor creature's
money; and I do not want it”—the old man shook
his head emphatically, “I do not want it, Mr. Roscoe;
my children are all good livers, and they are
not brought up, excepting Duty, to be gentlemen,
and the money would spoil them for any thing else.
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And for myself, what could money do for me? but
may be make me uneasy. My journey of life is
almost ended—I have more than enough to pay my
expenses by the way; and would a store of wealth
render me any more welcome at my Father's mansion?
though it might make me far less willing to
get there. My mind is fixed, Mr. Roscoe.”
“I honor your decision, sir, and the reasons for
it; but why not, as the unhappy man suggested,
apply his property to charitable uses?”
“No, no, Mr. Roscoe, no; I have thought of
that, but I should be ashamed to offer to the Lord
what I won't soil my own hands with. What, think
you, is the spiritual meaning of the command, that
the sacrifice should be `without spot or blemish, or
any such thing.' Can the fruits of such misdoings,
as caused that poor fellow's last agony, be an acceptable
gift for the altar of God?”
“We condemn the Romanists, because some
among them fancy their sins may be redeemed—
their souls bought out of purgatory by gifts to the
church and the poor. But how much better are
we, who encourage the living sinner by sanctifying
the dead? There is a deep mischief in this, Mr.
Roscoe, and often have I pondered on it. The
rich man who fares sumptuously every day, and
shuts his eye upon his starving brother; the miser
that hoards his treasure even from himself; the
Heaven-forsaken wretch who murders and spoils;
all have their hours of misgiving, their lonely nightwatches,
when thoughts of death and the judgment
to come harrow their souls. And how do they still
the clamors of conscience? Is it not by the
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promise that at some future time—at the worst, when they
come to die, they will give all to their Maker. But
let their gift perish with them, and let the offering
to the Lord be the fruits of an honest and obedient
life. These he requires, and these are a sweet
incense to Him.”
Roscoe heartily expressed his admiration of the
old man's sentiments. A blush that would have
graced sixteen tinged his cheek as he replied, “you
speak from your heart, Mr. Roscoe, I believe, but
I am not clear that I deserve all you say. I, like
other men, act from my feelings, and afterwards
think of the reasons to bear me out. I have my
own pride, and it would break my heart to own that
self-murderer was my son. He was a boy when he
left my roof, and he is forgotten. I am proud of my
name. He was the only dishonest man, as far as I
can learn, that ever answered to it.”
“One more suggestion, sir,” said Roscoe, “and
I have done. Do your son's sentiments accord with
yours?”
“Duty's? Perfectly—perfectly. An honest, independent,
manly boy, is Duty. As is his name, so
is he.”
Their sturdy integrity, their good sense, and nice
perception of true honor, secured to both father and
son Roscoe's friendship for life.
So many of the facts as were essential to their
verdict, were disclosed to the jury of inquest, and
no more. Pedrillo's last request was respected.
Triton was buried at his feet. The elder Flint
remained with the body till the funeral rites were performed.
Not one of the few assistants who officiated
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suspected the bitter feelings with which the old man
bent over the grave that enclosed his first-born.
In consequence of Marion's wounds, the party
was compelled to return to town by slow stages, and
did not arrive till the third day after they had left it.
They found Mrs. Layton's house in the greatest
confusion. Layton had been brought home in a state
of insensibility. When he recovered his consciousness,
he dismissed his attendants, and locked his
door. The servants had made repeated applications
for admission, but no answer had been returned, and
not a sound had proceeded from the apartment.
Mrs. Layton had shut herself in her own room,
had denied access to all but her own maid, and had
forbidden the servants to apply to her for orders on
any subject.
In this state of affairs, our fugitives were received.
Roscoe had at once a foreboding of the
real condition of Layton, which he intimated to
Gertrude in a whisper, and then ordered one of the
servants to attend him to his master's apartment.
After knocking and calling in vain, they forced
open the door. Layton's body was lying on the
floor; his spirit had gone to render up its dread account.
An empty phial lay beside him, and a pencil
and piece of paper, on which he had scrawled,
`Forgive me, my children—God have mercy on my
soul!'
On examination, his affairs were found in the most
disarranged condition. About half the certificates of
stock, which Miss Clarence had transferred to him,
were in his pocket-book, within an envelope, on
which was written, `The enclosed to be delivered to
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[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]
Miss Clarence, to whom, though bearing my name,
they really belong.' Miss Clarence, on being applied
to, declined to assume any farther control
of the property than to vest it in the hands of
trustees, for Mr. Layton's children, with a stipulation
that a portion of the income should be at the
disposition of his widow.
The grave interposed its shield at a fortunate
moment for poor Layton. His gaming associates
were not without a certain sense of honor which
bound them to preserve inviolate the secrets of their
club; and Pedrillo's disclosure was never made public.
Thus Emilie was sheltered from a knowledge
of her father's disgrace; and though she sorrowed
long and bitterly, she had every solace that love and
friendship could supply.
Our friend Duty was gradually awakened to the
real state of his matrimonial prospects. He had a
genuine admiration for Miss Clarence, and the extinction
of his o'er-grasping hopes was a serious shock
to him. For the first time in his life, his sparkling eyes
were dimmed with sentimental tears; but he was not
of a temper to break his heart in a love affair, and
gradually such little consolations insinuated themselves
into his mind, as that `Miss Clarence was
probably in love with Gerald Roscoe before she
ever saw him'—`That as Fate had so ordered it,
that he could not himself obtain her, he would rather
see her the wife of Roscoe, than of any other man
on earth'—`That next in value to her love was her
cordial friendship'—and finally, `That if, as he verily
believed, Gertrude Clarence had no equal, why
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should he not set about looking out for a second
best?'
We do not know that we can conclude more satisfactorily,
than by two authentic letters from the
principla personages of our narrative, the one written
during the summer following the last events we
have recorded, and the other some months later,
when time had matured and somewhat mellowed the
feelings we have described. Both were addressed
to Miss Marion—the first from Emilie.
“To Miss Marion.
“Clarenceville, June, 18—.
“My dear sister—Last Tuesday evening invest
“ed me with the right to address you by this en
“dearing name; but no rights can add to the gra
“titude and affection your Emilie has long borne
“to you.
“We were to have had a private wedding—Ger
“trude desired it, and I, particularly on account of
“my mourning; but Mr. Clarence said there should
“be no sign of sadness on so joyful an occasion as the
“union of four loving and true hearts, and that the
“pleasure of a wedding festival to Gertrude's country
“friends, was worth some sacrifice on our parts;
“and so we consented—could we help it?—to his
“wishes. The doors were thrown open, and all
“Clarenceville was present, old and young, rich
“and poor, to see their friend, benefactress, and
“queen, united to a man whom they confess to be
“worthy of her.
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“Before we went into the drawing-room, we were
“all, (by all I mean Gertrude, and Mr. Roscoe,
“and his mother—a celestial woman, Augusta—
“and Randolph, and myself,) we were all in the li
“brary. Mr. Clarence came in with his hands full
“of papers. `You must forgive me, my young
“friends,' he said, `for remembering, at this inter
“esting moment, your worldly concerns—you, I pre
“sume, have entirely forgotten them. You and I,
“my dear Gerald, in pecuniary affairs, are hence
“forth equal partners.' He put into Mr. Roscoe's
“hands papers which transferred to him the half of
“his fortune. Roscoe looked a little disconcerted;
“but he soon recovered himself, and replied, in
“his own frank and pleasant manner, `This gift,
“sir,' and he kissed Gertrude's hand, `has exhaust
“ed my gratitude; I cannot even make a return of
“words for an inferior proof of your generosity.'
“`Generosity! my dear fellow,' said Mr. Cla
“rence, `you know not with what joy I devolve half
“the burden and responsibility of my wealth upon
“you—with what gratitude I regard the benign
“Providence that has granted the dearest wish of
“my heart, in giving me a friend on whom I may
“repose this trust.'
“`As a trust then, sir,' replied Roscoe, `I re
“ceive it, and, by the grace of God, I will never
“dishonor your confidence.'
“Randolph afterwards said, that this was a man
“ner of giving and receiving, becoming rational
“and elevated beings, and he could not but
“contrast it with the usual quarrels about settle
“ments—with the jealousy and parsimony towards
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[figure description] Page 277.[end figure description]
“sons-in-law on the one side, and on the other, the
“anxious reckoning of the father's wealth, and cal
“culation of the chances of his life. For my part,
“dear Augusta, I did not think, I only felt, and had
“I not reason? for at the next moment Mr. Cla
“rence turned to me—`And you, my little Emilie,
“my other child,' he said, `I am to give you away
“too—it would be a shame to give you empty-
“handed, though Marion looks as if he felt now,
“and would for ever,
`That kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond, sparkling e'e,
`Has lustre outshining the diamond to me.'
“`Does not the verse run so? my memory may halt,
“but not my love, for,' he added, `giving me a
“check for twenty thousand dollars, `you, Emilie,
“like the youngest daughters in fairy tales, have
“the best portion, for such in my opinion is a mere
“competence.”
“I did not say one word. I threw my arms
“around his neck, and he kissed off my tears. I
“thought of my poor father—God forgive me for
“comparing him with Mr. Clarence at that mo
“ment.
“My letter would exceed all bounds, if I were to
“give you half the particulars of the evening. The
“drawing-rooms were hung with wreaths of flow
“ers. The gardener had not spared his finest
“plants; the lawn was illuminated with colored
“lamps, and a band of music was placed on the pi
“azza. The children were merry and noisy, but
“the rest of the company were thoughtful—they felt
“that the wedding was a prelude to parting with
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“Gertrude; and she is so beloved and honored
“here! `Not a creature ever crossed your path,'
“said one of her old friends to her, `but was the
“better or the happier for it.' Do you not believe,
“my dear sister, that the duties she has so well per
“formed have risen as incense to Heaven, to de
“scend again in blessings on her new home?
“Randolph, saucy fellow! has just bent over my
“shoulder, and read my letter. `Not one word of
“your husband!' he says. Oh Augusta, men do
“not seem to know that we are not forward to ex
“press what we feel most deeply. I am no great
“writer, to be sure; but if I were equal to you, or
“Gertrude, I could not find language to express
“what I feel for my husband. `There, Mr. Ran
“dolph, read that, if you like.'
“You do not yet know how much Gertrude has
“done for us. Poor mama was too much depressed to
“make any exertion. Gertrude wished her to take
“a small house, and devote herself to the education
“of my sisters. You know mama is very accom
“plished, but she said she had a natural antipathy
“to instruction—her mind would prey upon itself,
“&c. &c. So it was decided that my brothers
“should be sent to a boarding-school in Massachu
“setts, and my sisters should live with me. Ran
“dolph and I both begged mama to make our
“house hers, but she preferred a boarding-house,
“and she has a room at Madame Pignot's, beauti
“fully arranged. I was glad to see she could in
“terest herself in this.
“My tenderest love to your and my mother. Tell
“her, that but for some sad, sad recollections, I
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“should be peefectly happy. But was not my morn
“ing fearfully clouded? God grant that my future
“life may prove that the gracious influences of Hea
“ven were distilled from that dark cloud, and then,
“my dear sister, I shall not be unworthy of my
“happy destiny, and of that illustrious name, which
“I now for the first time sign.
“Yours truly,
“EMILIE MARION.”
“To Miss Marion.
“New York, Feb. 18—.
“My dear friend—You conclude your last letter
“with a request that I will write you a `womanish
“epistle, full of feminine details; such as, what
“house I live in, how it is furnished and garnished,
“whom I visit, &c. &c.' I have quoted the pas
“sage, that if I answer it à la lettre, you may re
“member that you called forth my egotism. Mr.
“Roscoe was so fortunate as to be able to repur
“chase his father's house, a fine old family mansion,
“not far from our beautiful battery, and command
“ing a view of our animated bay, which, if equalled,
“we the untravelled believe is not surpassed, by the
“happiest combinations of land and water on this
“fair earth. The house is somewhat old-fashioned,
“but we have given it the most modern and conve
“nient arrangement of which it was susceptible,
“without an entire and therefore, as we think, sacri
“legious alteration.
“Is it altogether our misfortune, or in some de
“gree our fault, that we have so few transmitted
“homes? As far as this is the result of the equal
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“partition of estates in our country, and in our city,
“particularly, of the influx of population and the
“fluctuation of fortune, we cannot help it; but, cer
“tainly as far as it is our own fault, we should
“lament and correct it. Have we not a passion
“for change and novelty? Whence comes, in this
“city, our most pernicious and prevailing custom
“of an annual remove? the terrors of `May day,'
“when the household gods seem changed into de
“mons, and `domestic happiness' to be no longer,
“as the poet makes it, exempt from the general
“wreck of Adam's fall. You are a phrenologist,
“my dear Augusta—is the bump of locality found
“on the American skull?
“I have known a father's house abandoned, be
“cause the apartments could not be made to com
“municate by folding-doors! or perhaps the ceil
“ings were a foot too low! those ceilings that have
“echoed the merry shout of childhood, the glad
“welcome, the farewell blessing, and the loud,
“home, heartfelt laugh. Our home should be loved
“as the ancient Jew loved Jerusalem—as he loved
“his temple—the `holy and the beautiful house' he so
“tenderly lamented. It is the temple of the domes
“tic affections; the altar on which the freest and
“most beautiful gifts are laid; the spot that, with
“all its accumulating associations, its holy spell of
“sacred recollections and sweet hopes, has no paral
“lel on earth. My dear Augusta, I forbear—I
“perceive I am running into sentiment on this sub
“ject, and I have already said quite enough to con
“vince you that I am satisfied with my location.
“Our furniture is the next topic on your list. I
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[figure description] Page 281.[end figure description]
“shall give you the principle on which we have pro
“ceeded; this is not quite so womanish as details,
“but those I defer for your own observation. We
“have not emulated the glittering and sumptuous
“drawing-rooms of our wealthy citizens, and we
“have carefully avoided (I have often seen this dis
“parity) a bare and sordid aspect in the upper
“apartments. All our sacrifices have been to the
“household worthies who preside over hospitality;
“our lodging-rooms have their contiguous dressing-
“rooms, are warmed by heated air, and each story
“has its bathing-room.
“Our library is a fine apartment on the second
“floor. The rebuking genius of economy has not
“presumed to pass its threshold. It is richly fur
“nished with the classics in English, French, Ger
“man, Italian, and Spanish, and all of the best edi
“tions. No diamond type to wear out young eyes,
“and vex old ones. The books are accompanied
“by their appropriate auxiliaries, globes, maps,
“atlases, prints, &c. The room is decorated with
“a few busts of those who are regarded in all en
“lightened countries as the noblest personifications
“of genius, Dante, Cervantes, Fenelon, Shakspeare,
“and Bacon. One fine portrait is placed in the
“most conspicuous position over the fire-place—
“the hearth-stone—as emblematic of the right of
“the original to preside over the charities and feli
“cities of home, as well as to be the ruling spirit of
“an apartment consecrated to the Muses. Whose
“is it? do you ask, Augusta? Whose should it
“be but his, who is par excellence the genius of the
“age, the benefactor of our homes?—who by his en
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[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]
“chantments has fraught more hours with pure and
“profitable pleasure than any writer of any age;—
“who has lighted up the dim eye of sickness—who
“has rejuvenated the old, awakened in them, the
“sleeping sympathies and affections of their youth,
“and filled
`Each blank in faithless memory's void;'
“who has unfolded the ample page of knowledge
“to the boy, and made his pulse throb with gene
“rous purpose and high aspiration—who has kin
“dled in all our hearts a loyal, a more than loyal,
“a filial love; so that we all
`Do stand on tiptoe when his name is named.'
“Praise and glory on his head! Long—long may
“it tower above his fellows, and at last, when reve
“rently laid beside the dust of his fathers, be honor
“ed and wept.
“How shall I descend, dear Augusta, from such
“a theme to the appointed topics of my letter—cur
“tains and carpets, plate and china? I cannot—take
“it for granted, that the whole concern is in tolera
“ble taste—that we, in our embellishments have se
“lected those that develope and elevate the taste, and
“are its enduring gratifications—that we have par
“exêmple some fine statuary, and beautifully sculp
“tured Italian vases. Gerald has applied to Leslie
“for a pair of his exquisite cabinet pictures. I trust
“the suspicion that he is reluctant to send his pro
“ductions to this country, is unfounded; for though
“we are not yet rich enough to afford patronage to
“the fine arts, we are not without the capacity to ad
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[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]
“mire and be improved by them; and it seems to me,
“that an artist should be proud to lay the fruits of
“his genius on the altar of that country, where it
“was first developed, even though the sacrifice should
“be unappreciated.
“Poor Seton! his Trenton-picture hangs in my
“own room, an affecting memorial of his genius and
“misfortunes—an altar-piece, that calls forth sacred
“recollections and hopes. To Seton, I owe all the
“taste I may have in the fine arts, and probably
“much of the lively interest I feel in our native art
“ists—an interest of which I have not been sparing
“in my demonstrations, for I have family portraits
“by our masters in that department, Copley, Stuart,
“Sully, &c., a variety of illustrations of our own
“scenery by our rising artists, and a beautiful pic
“ture of our sweet Emilie by Ingham, an American
“by adoption—the painter has grouped her young
“er sisters gracefully about her, and with his usual
“eminent success, has transfused the soft and living
“tints of youth and beauty to the canvass, has shown
“his unequalled skill in drapery, and imparted such
“sparkling and living lustre to the eyes, that you
“could almost believe he had stolen Prometheus'
“fire, and that the spirit beamed from its `throne of
“light.'
“Dear Emilie! she deserves to personify the vir
“tues of an elder sister. With beauty that is never
“seen without being admired, she avoids observa
“tion, and seems to have no ambition beyond that of
“performing well and quietly her domestic duties---
“a woman's gentle and best ambition, is it not? Your
“brother certainly thinks so, for he still regards her
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“(and will always, I doubt not) with the intense de
“votion of one, who, through much tribulation, has
“obtained an unparalleled treasure.
“Poor Mrs. Layton is a prey to ennui. The
“death of her husband, and its frightful circumstan
“ces, for a while appalled her. She went regularly
“to church, and frequented evening lectures, and
“seemed to be undergoing a transformation, not un
“common, from a woman of the world to a devotee;
“but it proved a fever heat, not the gentle salutary
“warmth of religion, and it has passed away. Our
“highest moralists tell us never to despair of hu
“manity, and we should not; but when were all-en
“grossing selfishness, frivolous habits, and a thirst for
“admiration and coquetry, indulged for thirty years;
“when were they cured but by the hard necessities of
“age? Thank Heaven, our country is not a theatre
“for such women as Mrs. Layton. She is isolated
“and fettered by our tame domestic habits—as much
“out of place as a jewel on a yeoman's finger, or a
“syllabub on his table. She might have run a more
“brilliant career in the more polished, and more cor
“rupt circles of Europe, but to be suspected, is as
“fatal to an American woman, as it could have been
“to Cæsar's wife.
“I am eagerly listening for the voice of spring,
“for you know, at the first gushing of the waters, at
“the very first passage of the steam-boats, you are
“to be with us. I expect to surprise you, who have
“received your impressions of New York society,
“from my distorted views of it while I was at Mrs.
“Layton's, with the delightful circles we assemble at
“our own house. In a city of the multifarious cha
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“racter of New York, it is a difficult art to select
“our society, a most critical navigation to steer
“clear of offending acquaintance you do not want,
“and to secure without forwardness, those you covet.
“However, the good to be obtained, fine society, the
“very first of social, intellectual luxuries, is worth
“effort. Fortunately for us, our position gives us
“the privilege of selection, and we make it without
“reference to any thing but the character of our
“guests. Those meet under our roof, who never
“meet elsewhere—persons of the first fashion, pro
“fessional laborious toilers, and the secluded men
“of genius.
“Julia Mayo is our prima donna; but among all
“my female friends, and there are several talented
“in divers ways, not one is more fascinating to me,
“than Angelique Abeille, a little French girl, whose
“history I will some day tell you. She plays and
“sings exquisitely, and is the charm of our musical
“parties.
“Do not imagine, my dear friend, that I have be
“come a devotee to society, even though it be of
“the most elevated and attractive character. No,
“I am too rich in my own private blessings—in the
“character and affections of my husband—in the
“society of Gerald's admirable mother, and that of
“my dear father, to be in any danger of forgetting
“that the family circle is the inner temple, where
“our highest gifts and best affections must be conse
“crated, and will be rewarded. And in all my
“prosperity, it is my earnest desire and purpose, to
“preserve my mind from undue elation—to perform
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“the serious unostentatious duties of a Christian
“woman—to walk humbly with my God.
“My letter has ended seriously, my dear Augus
“ta; but how could I cast my eye over the whole
“of my prosperous condition, without serious
“thoughts of the responsibilities, the uncertainties;
“and the brevity of life?---without an emotion of
“deep gratitude to Him, who has given me wealth,
“and saved me from its perils, and who has enrich
“ed me with that, far better, and best of all earthly
“blessings, the affections of one, on whose truth
“and virtue I may repose without fear of any
“change—because I know they will not change.
“Am I boasting to my single friend? no—who
“shall dare to boast to one, who gives such grace
“and loveliness to singleness?---whose virtues do
“not need the highest stimulants and rewards; for
“that the highest belongs to married life, you must
“forgive me for believing, since I am (and always
“affectionately your friend,)
“GERTRUDE ROSCOE.”
THE END.
