University of Virginia Library

1. CLARENCE;
OR,
A TALE OF OUR OWN TIMES.

1. CHAPTER I.

Pedrillo's detention at Trenton was protracted
day after day, and week after week. His inflammatory
constitution, and impatient temper, acted reciprocally
upon each other ; and a wound, that
with a tranquil temperament would, by the process
of nature, have been cured in a week, produced a
suffering and languishing sickness. So surely and
dreadfully are physical evils aggravated by moral
causes, that those who would enjoy a sound body,
should cherish a sound mind.

He passed the weary hours in alternately execrating
poor little Triton, as the cause of his accident,
and then caressing him as the only solace of his
solitude; in cursing his own ill-luck, waterfalls,
country-doctors—in short, every thing that had the

most innocent relation to his misfortune. Time at
last, did its beneficent work, and late in the autumn,
Pedrillo returned to New York, without a blemish
on his fine person.

A few weeks had wrought a sad change in Emilie.
The careless, irrepressible joy of youth was gone;
her manners had the indifference and languor of
those, whose interests in life are paralyzed by use
and time; the bloom had faded from her cheek, and
was only replaced by the exquisite, but transient
hue of feeling. Her eyes were habitually cast down,
as if to shelter from observation, the secret sorrow
that was betrayed in their tender melancholy.
She submitted to the fate that awaited her, without
any other remonstrance, or repining, than the mute
signs we have described, which should indeed have
spoken daggers to her parents. She began to fancy
herself callous to the future. 'Why should she
care what became of her ?' thus she reasoned— 'if
Randolph Marion no longer cared for her, and she
was sure that he did not, nor in any circumstances
ever would.'

She had seen him once since his unkind parting
at Trenton. He, and his sister, passed through
New York, on their way to Virginia, and she accidentally
encountered them in a shop. Randolph
bowed coldly; Miss Marion, always kind, in
and out of rule, addressed her with cordiality; but
a cordiality so flurried, that it betrayed its meaning.
She said that they were hurrying through town, and
made some apology for not calling to see her, which
like most such apologies, only augmented the embarrassment
it was meant to allay. Emilie did not

distinctly comprehend a word Miss Marion said—
she did not know whether she replied or not. She
was only conscious that Randolph was standing near
her; and was, as she thought, in the coolest manner
possible, discussing with the shop-keeper, the quality
of some French cravats. Once she looked towards
him, she could not help it, but his eye was
averted, and she hastened away, to bewail in secret
the injustice and inconstancy of man, and the hard
fate of woman, destined to love on without requital,
and to suffer without sympathy.

In the mean time, Mrs. Layton flowed down the
current of life, with her usual habits of self-indulgence
and expense. She maintained her intimacy
with Gerald Roscoe; an intimacy, that might have
degenerated into a liaison of a more doubtful nature,
in circumstances where moral restraints are less salutary
, and severe, and pervading; and the eye of the
public less vigilant, than in our fortunate country.
We would not insinuate that Mrs. Layton had any
more vicious propensity, than a love for admiration;
but what is more corrupting, than an insatiable passion
for admiration? an unextinquishable love of coquetry
? They can only be gratified by influencing the
imagination, through the medium of the passions; and
a woman, a wife, a mother, who maintains this most
unholy despotism, has already sacrificed the fine spirit
of virtue. We would be the last to impeach the
virtue of our hero, but it was human, and therefore,
needed to be fortified against temptation. There is
something very flattering to the vanity of a young
man in the preference of a woman of experience ; if
that experience is set off and enriched, by talent and

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

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.”

“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,

“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.

“There are besides,” said Mrs. Layton, “some
unwritten accounts, which, while your hand is in,
you may as well settle. The children's school-bills—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

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.

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

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
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,

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

“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

“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

“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.”