University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

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

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

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.

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.”

“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 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.”

“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

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;

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. 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?”

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

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 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

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.