 | CHAPTER III. Clarence, or, A tale of our own times |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
“I know not whether the vicious or the ignorant man be most
cursed by the possession of riches.”
Anon.
“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
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
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
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
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 intimacy.
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
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
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 channel.
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
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
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
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.”
“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
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
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 suffered
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
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.
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
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!”
“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
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,
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
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
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
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
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.
| CHAPTER III. Clarence, or, A tale of our own times | |