University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Alone, in her own room, pondering deeply upon
the past, remembering with a gleam of ecstasy the
sunny hopes which had once flashed across her mind,
and then forever disappeared, sat Jessie. Long endured
and long concealed sorrow had slightly impaired
the crimson tinge of her cheek, and changed a little, a
very little, that elastic step, from which, in other days,
the bending flowers had risen unharmed. Notwithstanding
her sister had been so studiously cold and
cruel toward her, she would still have felt a deep commiseration
for her under any real calamity; but she
had no sympathy for a distress which proceeded solely
from disappointed ambition, and she could not but feel
that so lofty a pride deserved so great a fall. What
was there, indeed, in Gertrude's fate, that demanded
pity? She looked into her own heart, and felt that
under similar circumstances the loss of wealth would
have wrung no sigh from her; nay, that she would

almost have rejoiced at the opportunity which adversity
ever gives of winning a closer shelter under the
wings of affection. And such was the light, she did
not doubt, in which her sister would soon regard the
change, laughing at the remembrance of present grief.
Poor simple Jessie! such was thy faith still in Gertrude,
the proud, the cold, the scornful Gertrude,
whose heart, to thine, was as the barren sand-bank to
the flowery parterre.

It was not until some hours after the departure of
Derick, that Livingston sought the presence of Miss
Van Corlear. He came to bestow condolence where
he had a right to seek it—to ask forgiveness where
he might require apology. Unmoved by calamity,
overflowing with kindness, he came to meet still a
haughty frown and imperious demands. Then, even
then, Gertrude found it in her heart to ask, nay to
insist upon what she had resolved should be.

“Let the Law,” she said, “determine this great
question; when the courts, aye, the last court of appeal
shall have adjudicated it, then it will be time
enough to surrender your rights.”

In vain did Livingston assure her that nothing short
of the most conclusive proof should satisfy him.

“It is not enough,” she said; “you must employ
skilful counsel, who are accustomed to unweave, aye,
and to weave tangled webs, and who will soon, I warrant
you, raise such a pother about this interloper's
ears that he will be glad to retreat with whatever
you choose to give him.”

“And do you really mean, Gertrude,” asked Livingston,
solemnly, “that I should do all this, even if I
am myself convinced that his claim is just?”

“You have no right to be convinced,” she replied
quickly; “it is a question for the courts to settle.
Ask legal proof, that will bear sifting and re-sifting;
use all the complicated machinery of the Law; throw
the case into Chancery, only to come out in another
century, and by such means you will at least secure
the estate for your own life-time, which is all that is
really important. Do not seek to be so much better
than your neighbors; others have done it, why not
you?”

“I could indeed,” said Harry, “do all that you
require. The Law is a friend to the rich. Drive
but to its temples in a coach-and-six, and you may
drive over the broken hearts and crushed hopes of the

hapless crowds who throng, penniless, around its gates.
But when I consent to do this—mark me now, Gertrude
Van Corlear! when I consent to use the tortures,
the racks, and the thumb-screws of the Law,
to defraud the son of my old, aye, my only friend,
then may his loved form rise from its grave, and
haunt me till I sink into my own!”

It was not with the declamation of the schools, but
with the richer eloquence of nature, attested by quivering
lips and gushing tears, that this was said. But
Gertrude was not moved.

“If it is in the light of a threat,” she rejoined, “that
you speak of your deceased uncle as your only friend,
let me assure you, Mr. Livingston—”

“Nay, Gertrude, forbear! I anticipate your meaning.
Let it not all come to this, or at least not now.
Take a little time to reflect, and we may yet be happy
in the realization of brighter days even than those
that we have so long anticipated. In calmer moments—”

“I am calm now, Mr. Livingston; calm enough to
say that your visions of a quiet cottage and clustering
honeysuckles are unsuited to my taste.”

“A better spirit, Gertrude, will be yours—you will
repent—”

“No, Mr. Livingston; he who refuses me the first
boon that I ever asked of him, will probably refuse
the last.”

“And are you then, really, in earnest? Do you
ask no time to reflect? a week? a day? an hour,
even?”

“Not a minute, sir!”

And thus they parted.

That same evening beheld Livingston on his way
homeward. Not without kind words and earnest
entreaties from Gertrude's parents to prolong his
stay; but without another word sought or given
from her. His leave-taking was a hasty one, and
none knew of the quarrel but as it might be guessed
by his pale cheek and excited bearing. Dame Van
Corlear, never too astute, suspected nothing amiss.
That the nuptials should be again postponed, was,
under the circumstances, not a matter of surprise,
and perhaps scarcely of regret. Pressing business of
some kind, growing out of the new state of things,
doubtless demanded Harry's abrupt departure. She

never dreamed, good soul, and never would have
consented, as far as her influence went, to any
estrangement between him and Gertrude. As to
the alderman, so many remarkable events had put
him in great perplexity, and in vain did he seek to
clarify his ideas with his never-dying pipe. A little
smoking volcano, grumbling mightily within, and
threatening continual eruptions, was Burley. Like
the thin vapors that rose around him, like the ignis
fatuus of the marsh, like the mirage of the desert, all
his anticipated honors were vanishing from his view.
Not that this imagery of thought passed through
Burley's mind. He dealt but little in similes, and in
those of a different class. Mixed metaphors were
Burley's, for in his mind everything was mixed. It
possessed, indeed, an agglomerating power peculiar
to itself, and over its recondite treasures hung a perpetual
haze, undisturbed by one clear and lucid idea.
Had such a visiter found entrance there, it would
have been like a stray sunbeam amid the cobwebs of
a dungeon. Some men's first impressions are correct,
and some attain certainty by reflection; but to
neither of these classes belonged Burley. Before,
therefore, he could decide whether Harry's departure
boded evil or good, the latter was gone, and, gliding
quietly over the waters of the Hudson, was reflecting
painfully on the singular turn of fortune, which in one
short week had divested him of home, of property,
and of friends.