University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Our readers must allow us to take a liberty with
time, the tyrant that takes such liberties with us all,
and passing over the three years that followed the
events of the last chapter, introduce them into the
library of Gerald Roscoe's mother, now a widow.
The apartment was in a dismantled condition. A
centre-table was covered with files of papers. The
book-cases were emptied of their precious contents.
The walls stained with marks of pictures just taken
down. The centre-lamp removed from its hangings,
vases from their stands, and busts from their
pedestals, and the floor encumbered with packages,
labelled with various names, and marked `sold.'

Mrs. Roscoe was sitting on a sofa beside her son,
and leaning her head on his shoulder. Their faces
in this accidental position, had the very beauty and
expression that a painter might have selected to
illustrate the son and mother—the widowed mother.
The meek brow on which the fair hair, unharmed
by time, was parted, and just appeared in plain
rich folds from beneath the mourning-cap; the
tender, vigilant, mother's eye; the complexion, soft,
and fair, and colorless, as a young infant's; and the
slender form, which, though it had lost all beauty
but grace and delicacy, retained those eminently;

wereall contrasted as they should be with the firmly
knit frame and manly stature of her son; with the dark
complexion, flushed with the glow of health; a profusion
of wavy jet black hair; the full lustrous eye
of genius; an expression of masculine vigor and
untamed hope, softened by the play of the kind
affections of one of the most feeling hearts, and
happiest temperaments in the world. One could
not look at him without thinking that he would
like to take the journey of life with him; would
select him for a compagnon du voyage, sure that he
would resolutely surmount the steeps, smooth the
roughnesses, and double the pleasures of the way.
And who to look at the mother would not have
been content to have travelled the path of life with
her, `heaven born and heaven bound,' as she was,
unencumbered with the burden of life, and unsullied
with any thing earthly? She bore the traces of
grief, deep and recent, but endured with such filial
trust that it had not disturbed the holy tranquillity
of her soul. There was such feminine delicacy in
her appearance, her voice was so sweet and low-toned,
her manners so gentle, that she seemed made
to be loved, cherished, caressed, and defended from
the storms of life. But she was overtaken by them,
the severest, and she endured them with a courage
and fortitude, not derived from the uncertain springs
of earth but from that fountain that infuses its own
celestial quality into the virtue it sustains.

“This has been a precious hour of rest, my dear
Gerald,” said his mother, “but we must not prolong
it. We have still some matters to arrange
before we leave the house.”

“No, I believe all is finished. I have just given
your last inventory and directions to the auctioneer.”

“Then nothing remains but to dismiss Agrippa.
I had determined to have no feelings, but I am
not quite equal to this task. You must do it for
me, Gerald.”

“I have already arranged that business. Agrippa
would not be dismissed. He says he is spoiled for
new masters and mistresses; and to tell you the
truth, my gentle mother, Agrippa is half right, your
servants are not fit for the usage of common families.

“I certainly would retain Agrippa, Gerald, if we
had any right to such a luxury as the indulgence of
our feelings. But my annuity will hardly stretch
to the maintenance of a servant, and you, my dear
boy, have yet to learn how hard it is to earn your
own subsistence.”

“That's true, mother; but it will be only a little
harder to earn Agrippa's too; and I shall work
with a lighter heart, if I toil for something beside
my own rations. Thank heaven! in our plentiful
country there is many an extra cover at nature's
board, and those who earn a place there, have a
right to dispense them. Agrippa, poor fellow,
would follow our fortunes even though `he died for
lack of a dinner.' When I asked him where he
meant to go when we left the house, he drew up
with the greatest dignity, and said, `With the family,
to be sure. Who could ever think of madam and
Mr. Gerald living without a servant?”'

“Well, Gerald, if the fancy that his services confer

granduer or benefit on us, makes him happier,
we will not destroy the illusion. Your exertions to
support the old man will give me more pleasure
than a thousand servants. My mind has, of late,
been so occupied with inventories, that I have
thought of making a list of my compensations for
the loss of fortune. I should place first the power
of adversity to elicit the energies of a young man
of eighteen.”

“Pass over the mother's compensations, if you
please, and specify some other particulars. For
instance, is adversity the touchstone of friendship?”

“No, I think not—that is the common notion;
but it seems to me that the misanthropic complaints
of human nature, with which most persons embitter
their adversity, result from accidental connnctions
and ill-assorted unions. In prosperity intimacies
are formed, not so much from sympathy of taste
and feeling, as from similarity of condition. We
associate with those who live in a certain style,
and when this bond is dissolved, why should not
the friendship be?”

“Friendship! mother?”

“True, Gerald, it is an absurd misnomer. We
fancy the shadow is a substance, and when the
light enters complain that it vanishes. Those who
are not intoxicated by fortune, nor duped by vanity,
do not need adversity to prove their friends. I
have been disappointed in one instance only, and
there the fault is my own. I humbly confess I was
blinded by his flattery. I ought always to have
known there was nothing in Stephen Morley to deserve
our friendship.”

“Stephen Morley! the poor scoundrel, he does
not deserve a thought from you, my dear mother.”

“But we must bestow a few thoughts upon him
just now, Gerald. Run your eye over that power
of attorney,” she added, giving him a paper, “and
if you find it correct, send it to Denham.” The
paper authorized Denham, Mrs. Roscoe's lawyer,
to convert a certain property into money, and
therewith to pay a debt due to Stephen Morley
from the late Edward Roscoe, Esquire.

“This is superfluous,” said Gerald, “Morley's
debt is already provided for in the assignment.”

“True, but Morley is dissatisfied and impatient.”

“Good Heaven! does the fellow dare to say so?”

“Read his note, Gerald, and you will think with
me that a release from even the shadow of an obligation
to Mr. Morley is worth a sacrifice.” Gerald
read the following note:

Gerald threw down the note; “the sycophantic,
selfish rascal!” he exclaimed, “yes, pay him, my dear
mother—if it were the pound of flesh, I would pay
him—`peculiar circumstances,' pecuiar enough,
Heaven knows! The only requital he ever made for
loans from my father that saved him, time after time,
from a jail—`peculiar,' peculiar indeed, that after
our house has been a home to him he should be the
only one of all the creditors dissatisfied. Pay him!
Yes, mother, pay him instantly.”

A servant opened the door “Mr. Morley, madam!
He asks if he can see you alone.”

“Show Mr. Morley up—leave me, Gerald.”

Gerald paused at the door: “Let me see him,
mother,” he said earnestly; “he does not deserve”
—his sentence was broken off by Morley's entrance.
Gerald looked as if he longed to give him the intimation
the Frenchman received who said of the

gentleman who kicked him down stairs, `he intimated
he did not like his company.' Morley seized his hand,
gave it a pressure, and said in a voice accurately depressed
to the key of condolence, “My dear Gerald!”
and then elongating his visage to its utmost
stretch of wofulness he advanced towards Mrs. Roscoe.
She baffled all his preparations by meeting him
with a composure that made him feel his total insignificance
in her eyes. The bidden tear that welled
to his eye was congealed there, and the thrice conned
speech died away on his lips. “You have business
with me, Mr. Morley,” she said in a manner that
excluded every other ground of intercourse.

“Yes, my dear madam, I have a small matter of
business; but it is particularly painful to intrude it
at this moment. I am really quite overwhelmed
with seeing preparations for an auction in this house.
God bless me, my dear Julia, was it not possible to
avoid this consummation of your misfortunes? And
now, when the details of business must be so extremely
trying to you?”

“On the contrary, Mr. Morley, they are of service
to me.”

“Ah! I fear you are overtaxing yourself—an unnatural
excitement, depend on it. I fear too—suffer
me to be frank—my deep interest in you must be
my apology—I fear you have been ill-advised. In
your peculiar circumstances, nothing would have
been easier than a favorable compromise with the
majority of your creditors—certain debts, of course,
to be excepted.”

“Fortunately, Mr. Morley, there was no necestural

for exceptions; I have the means to pay them
all.”

“Undoubtedly, madam; but by the surrender of
your private fortune—to that my friend's creditors
had no claim; of course I except those debts in
which my friend's honor was involved.”

“You must pardon me, Mr. Morley; as a woman,
I am ignorant of the nice distinctions of men
of business. Gerald has not yet learned an artificial
code of morals; and we both thought all honest
debts honorable.”

“Undoubtedly, madam, in one sense; you have
high notions on these subjects; the misfortune is,
they do not accord with the actual state of things;
such sacrifices are not required by the sense of the
public.”

“Perhaps not, Mr. Morley, but we were governed
by our own moral sense.”

“Fanciful, my dear madam; and suffer me to say
that whatever right you may have to indulge your
romantic self-sacrifice, you seem to me to have
overlooked your duty to Gerald.”

“A mother,” replied Mrs. Roscoe, with a faint
smile, “is not in much danger of overlooking such
duties to an only son. Had our misfortunes occurred
at an earlier period of Gerald's life, the surrender
of my fortune would have been more difficult.
But Gerald has already had, and availed himself
worthily, of every advantage of education that our
country affords. His talents, zeal, and industry—I
speak somewhat proudly, Mr. Morley—are his present
means, and adequate to his wants. His agency

for Mr. Clarence, and another honorable employment
he has been so fortunate as to obtain, will furnish
him a respectable support without encroaching on
his professional studies.”

“Very fortunate, very respectable, undoubtedly,
my dear madam; but then my friend Gerald is so
very promising—such an uncommonly elegant young
man—he would have come into life under such advantages.
Why, there are the Vincents, Mrs. Roscoe.
Who are more sought and visited than the
Vincents? Mrs. V. was left in circumstances precisely
analogous to yours. She had, I may say, if not an
able, a fortunate adviser at least. We called the
creditors together, and exhibited rather a desperate
state of affairs. She was, you know, at that
time a remarkably pretty woman, and looked uncommonly
interesting in her widow's weeds; her
children were assembled around her in their deep
mourning—it was quite a scene. I assure you the
creditors were touched; they signed a most favorable
compromise—compounded for ten per cent. I
think. Mrs. Vincent lived in great retirement
while her daughters were being educated—spared
no expense—and now they have come out in the
very first style, I assure you. Nobody has a
more extensively fashionable acquaintance—nobody
entertains in better style, than my friend Mrs. Vincent.”

“I believe I must remind you that you have business
with me, Mr. Morley.”

Morley bit his nails; but after a moment he recovered
his self-possession, and reverted from the natural

tone into which he had fallen, to that of sentimental
sympathy. “Yes, my dear madam, I have
business; but really my own concerns were quite
put out of my head, by seeing this house, in which I
have passed so many pleasant hours, in preparation for
an auction! I hardly know how to proceed; I could
not fully explain myself in my note. It is too delicate
an affair to commit to paper—I was particularly
solicitous not to excite your feelings.” Mrs. Roscoe
listened with that quiet attention, that said, as plainly
as words could speak it, You cannot excite my feelings,
Mr. Morley. She was however mistaken.
Morley proceeded: “I perceive, by the exhibit of
your affairs, that you have placed me on the same
footing with the other creditors of my late friend;
I know it is your intention they shall all be fully
paid, principal and interest—but permit me to say
this is a fallacious hope—a case that rarely occurs;
there are invariably great losses in the settlement of
estates—if the creditors get fifty per cent., they esteem
themselves fortunate. I am compelled to say, though
reluctantly, that there is something a little peculiar
in this debt to me, which renders its immediate and
entire payment very important—important, I mean,
to the memory of my late friend.”

“Will you have the goodness, Mr. Morley, to
explain to me the peculiar circumstances attending
this debt?”

“Excuse me, my dear madam; it would be too
painful a task; take my assurance that my friend's
honor is implicated. I beg,” he added, lowering
his voice, “that you will not communicate to Gerald
what I am going to say. He is hot-headed, and

might be rash. An exposure of the circumstances
attending the loan would be most unfortunate; I
could not avert the consequences to my friend's reputation.
The dishonor, I am sorry to say it,
would be great, and the disadvantage to your
son, inestimable. It is therefore on his account,
far more than my own, that I urge immediate payment.”

“Let me understand you distinctly, Mr. Morley;
do you mean that there were circumstances attending
the borrowing of that money dishonorable to my
husband?”

“I grieve to say there were, madam.”

“And those circumstances must transpire if the
money is not immediately refunded?”

“This is the unhappy state of the case.”

“Will you run your eye over that power of attorney,
Mr. Morley?” Morley did so, and felt a
mingled sensation of joy, at finding himself so secure
of immediate possession of the total amount of
his debt, and of vexation that he had taken so much
superfluous trouble; however, the pleasure preponderated
and sparkled in his eyes, as he said, “This
is perfectly satisfactory, my dear madam, entirely
so; it wants nothing but your signature.”

“And my signature, sir, it never will receive.”
Morley's face fell. He looked as if he felt much as
a fox might be supposed to feel, who sees the trapdoor
fall upon him, just as he is in the act of grasping
his prey. “Mr. Morley,” continued Mrs. Roscoe,
“that instrument will convince you how solicitous
I was to escape from a pecuniary obligation
to you—galling as it is, I will continue to endure it,

to show you that neither your broad assertions, nor
malignant insinuations, can excite one fear for the
honor of my husband's memory. I shall not communicate
what you have said to my son, for he
might not be able to restrain his indignation against
a man who has slandered his father, to his mother's
car. Our business is now, sir, at an end.” Mrs.
Roscoe rang the bell. Morley fumbled with his
hat and uttered some broken sentences, half remonstrating,
and half apologizing. The servant appeared.
“Agrippa, open the street-door for Mr.
Morley.” Mr. Morley was compelled to follow
Agrippa, with the mortifying consciousness of
having been penetrated, baffled, and put down, by a
woman.

It may appear incomprehensible to our readers,
that Stephen Morley should ever have been honored
with the friendship of the Roscoes, but they must
remember we have shown him without his mask.
—“The art of pleasing,” says Chesterfield, “is
the art of rising in the world,” and one of the
grossest but surest arts of pleasing is the art of
flattery. Morley flattered women for their love;
men for their favor, and the people for their suffrages.
From the first he received all grace, from the second,
consideration, and from the last, office and political
distinction. When the Roscoes were affluent and
distinguished, Morley was as obsequious to them as
an oriental slave to his master. But when a sudden
turn in the tide of fortune changed the aspect of
their affairs, and cloud after cloud gathered over
them, Mr. Stephen Morley, who resembled the feline

race in their antipathy to storms, as well as in
some other respects, shook the damps from his coat,
and slunk away from the side of his friends.

The Roscoes, occupied with deep sorrows and
difficult duties, had almost forgotten him, when he
consummated his meanness by the conduct we have
related.