University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCTIONS AND REMINISCENCES

Thus unsuccessful, it was for rest more than for inquiry that
I turned my steps toward Mrs. Clifford's modest dwelling—a
house containing only just rooms enough for decent comfort, yet
inhabited by gentle breeding, and feelings which meet but little
sympathy in these rough walks. Mrs. Clifford was a widow,
bowed down by misfortune, and gradually sinking into a sort of
desperate apathy, if we may be allowed such a term—a condition
to which successive disappointments and the gradual fading
away of long-cherished hopes, will sometimes reduce proud
yet honourable minds. The apathy is on the surface, but the
smouldering fires of despair burst forth at intervals, in spite of
their icy covering. Exertion had long since been abandoned by
this unfortunate lady, and she sat always in her great arm-chair,
seeming scarce alive to common things, yet starting in agonized
sensitiveness when the tender string of her altered fortunes was
touched by a rude hand. This total renunciation of effort had
done its work upon her mind and body. Mrs. Clifford had become
a mere mountain in size, while her pale face and leaden
eye told of anything but health and enjoyment. She read incessantly,
seeking that “oblivious antidote” in books, which coarser
natures are apt to seek in less refined indulgences. She lived in
a world of imagination until she had insensibly become unfit for
a world of reality. Who can find anything charming in common
life, after a full surrender of the mind to the excitements of fiction?
Who ever relished common air after a long draught of
exhilarating gas?

To the looker-on, this poor lady, broken down and dispirited
as she was, seemed to have much left for which to be grateful.
Her two daughters and their manly brother were patterns of duty
and devoted affection. Through the whole sad period of the
downfall of their fortunes, and the gradual withdrawal, from
various causes, of almost the very means of existence, Augustus
Clifford shrank from nothing which promised advantage to his
mother's condition. While she had yet an income, he was her
very efficient and accurate man of business; and when the “misfortunes”
of banks, and the assiduity of “defaulters” had made
this office a sinecure, he turned his hand to the plough, and was
the “patient log-man” of a poverty-stricken household. He had
seen with unavailing distress the sad decay of his mother's energies,
and done all that a son may, to avert the ill consequences
of her indolent habits; but finding matters only growing worse,
he had left home at the urgent entreaty of his sisters, a few
weeks before the time when our story commences, to seek employment
in the city, where abilities like his are so much more in
request than in the woods.

Of the two daughters, Rose, the elder, was in feeble health,
and, though gentle and unassuming, and much beloved at home,
not particularly attractive elsewhere. She was said to have
been crossed in love, and her subdued and rather melancholy
manner seemed to confirm the report. But Anna Clifford had
beauty and grace of a rare order, though in a style not always
appreciated by those who admire that fragility of form which is so
coveted by our own fair countrywomen. She was taller than
most women, but so beautifully proportioned that this would not
occur to you until you saw her measured with others. Magnificent
is the epithet for her beauty; and much intercourse with
polished society had given a free and finished elegance to her
manners, while it had detracted nothing from the truth and simplicity
of her character. Born to fortune, and having the further
advantages of connections high in place, it is not surprising that
she should have found many admirers. Indeed we have the satisfaction
of knowing that our forest judgment of her charms had
been borne out by the homage rendered to our fair neighbour by
various young men of acknowledged taste who had bowed at her

shrine in happier days. But it may not be so easy to believe
that her heart was still her own. Perhaps the careless gayety of
her spirits had proved her shield, since all passion is said to be
serious. However this may be, she declared she would not
marry till thirty, adding, with the deep determination of twenty-one,
and also with the tone which befits the inheritrix of certain
prejudices, that then the happy man should be neither a Yankee,
a Presbyterian, nor a widower.

We have omitted to mention that these our friends were from
England—one forgets that friends are foreigners. Mrs. Clifford,
whose income at home had diminished from various causes, was
attracted to this country by the far higher interest to be obtained
on money; and during some years that she resided in one of the
great cities, her expectations of increased income were more than
realized, and she and her family had enjoyed all that the best
American circles afforded to the wealthy and the accomplished of
whatever land. When the dark days came, and Mrs. Clifford
found herself left with scarcely a pittance, the “West”—then an
El Dorado—offered many attractions to the sanguine mind of
Augustus, and he persuaded his mother to withdraw, while yet
she might be able to purchase a little land where land is almost
given away. What had been the result of this enterprise, we
have already seen. Mrs. Clifford was too old to bear transplanting.
A high aristocratic pride was the very soul of her being.
In the present condition of her circumstances, she felt not only
inconvenience—that was unavoidable under a complete revulsion
of habits—but degradation; an idea which common sense and
self-respect should have scouted. And the very thing that should
have made present sacrifices easy, served but to embitter them.
The Cliffords had expectations from England, on the demise of
some long-lifed uncle or aunt; a fortune, of course, since an
English legacy always passes for a fortune, an involuntary compliment,
I suppose, to the well-known wealth of our magnificent
mother. However, the Cliffords said “expectations,” which we
will leave to be limited, or unlimited, by the imagination of the
reader.

This much by way of introduction—an indispensable ceremony,
always attended with some awkwardness. Our present one

has been circumstantial and minute, after the fashion of the country,
e. g.:

“Miss Wiggins, let me make you acquainted with an uncle of
His'n, just come down from Ionia county, the town of Freemantle,
village of Breadalbane—come away up here to mill, (they
ha'n't no mills yet, up there.) Uncle, this is Miss Wiggins,
John Wiggins's wife, up yonder on the hill, t'other side o' the
mash—you can see the house from here. She's come down to
meetin'.”