University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS.

WE left Peek (known in New York as Jacobs) in the
little closet opening from the apartment where Charlton
sat at his papers. The knock at the outer door was
succeeded by the entrance of a person of rather imposing
presence.

Mr. Albert Pompilard stood upwards of six feet in his polished
shoes and variegated silk stockings. He was bulky, and
could not conceal, by any art of dress, an incipient paunch.
But whether he was a youth of twenty-five or a man of fifty it
was very difficult to judge on a hasty inspection. He was in
reality sixty-nine. He affected an extravagantly juvenile and
jaunty style of dress, and was never twenty-four hours behind
the extreme fashions of Young America.

On this occasion Mr. Pompilard was dressed in a light-colored
sack or pea-jacket, with gaping pockets and enormous
buttons, the cloth being a sort of shaggy, woollen stuff, coarse
enough for a mat. His pantaloons and vest were of the same
astounding fabric. He wore a new black hat, just ironed and
brushed by Leary; a neckerchief of a striped red-and-black
silk, loosely tied; immaculate linen; and a diamond on his
little finger. A thick gold chain passed round his neck, and
entered his vest pocket. He swung a gold-headed switch, and
was followed by a little terrier dog of a breed new to Broadway.

Mr. Pompilard's complexion was somewhat florid, and presented
few marks of age. He wore his own teeth, which were

still sound and white, and his own hair, including whiskers,
although the hue was rather too black to be natural.

“I believe I have the honor of addressing Mr. Charlton,”
said Pompilard, with the air of one who is graciously bestowing
a condescension.

“That 's my name, sir. What 's your business?” replied
Charlton, in the curt, dry manner of one who gives his information
grudgingly.

“My name, sir, is Pompilard. You may not be aware that
there is a sort of family connection between us.”

“Ah! yes; I remember,” said Charlton, looking inquiringly
at his visitor, but not asking him to sit down.

Pompilard returned his gaze, as if waiting for something;
then, seeing that nothing came, he lifted a chair, replaced it
with emphasis on the floor, and sat down. If it was a rebuke,
Charlton did not take it, though the terrier seemed to comprehend
it fully, for he began to bark, and made a reconnoissance
of Charlton's legs that plainly meant mischief.

Pompilard refreshed himself for a moment with the lawyer's
alarm, then ordered Grip to lie down under the table, which he
did with a quavering whine of expostulation.

“I see,” said Pompilard, “you almost forget the precise
nature of the connection to which I allude. Let me explain:
the lady who has the honor to be your wife is the step-mother,
I believe, of Mr. Henry Berwick.”

“Both the step-mother and aunt,” interposed Charlton, somewhat
mollified by the language of his visitor.

“Yes, she was half-sister to his own mother,” resumed Pompilard.
“Well, the wife of Mr. Henry Berwick was Miss
Aylesford of Chicago, and is the niece of my present wife.”

“I understand all that,” said Charlton; and then, as the
thought occurred to him that he might make the connection
useful, he rose, and, offering his hand, said, “I am happy to
make your acquaintance, Mr. Pompilard.” That gentleman
rose and exchanged salutations; and Grip, under the table,
gave a smothered howl, subsiding into a whine, as if he felt
personally aggrieved by the concession, and would like to put
his teeth in the calf of a certain leg.

“My object in calling,” said Pompilard, “is merely to inquire

if you can give me the present address of Mrs. Henry Berwick.
My wife wishes to communicate with her.”

Charlton generally either evaded a direct question or answered
it by a lie. He never received a request for information,
even in regard to the time of day, that he did not cast
about in his mind to see how he could gain by the withholding
or profit by the giving. He took it for granted that every
man was trying to get the advantage of him; and he resolved
to take the initiative in that game. And so, to Pompilard's
inquiry, Charlton replied:

“I really cannot say whether Mr. Berwick is in the country
or not. The last I heard of him he was in Paris.”

“Then your intelligence of him is not so late as mine. He
arrived in Boston some days since, but left immediately for the
West by the way of Albany. I thought your wife might be in
communication with him.”

“They seldom correspond.”

“I must inquire about him at the Union Club,” said Pompilard,
musingly. “By the way, Mr. Charlton, you deal in real
estate securities, do you not?”

“Occasionally. There are some old-fashioned persons who
consult me in regard to investments.”

“Do you want any good mortgages?” asked Pompilard.

“Just at present, money is very scarce and high,” replied
Charlton.

“That 's the very reason why I want it,” said his visitor.
“Could you negotiate a thirty thousand dollar mortgage
for me?”

“But that 's a very large sum.”

“Another reason why I want it,” returned Pompilard.
“Supposing the security were satisfactory, what bonus should
you require for getting me the money? Please give me
your lowest terms, and at once, for I have an engagement in
five minutes on 'Change.”

“Well, sir,” said Charlton, in the tone of a man to whom it
is an ordinary act to drive the knife in deep, “I think in these
times five per cent would be about right.”

“Pooh! I 'll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard,
with an air of unspeakable contempt. “Come, Grip.”

And Mr. Pompilard bowed and turned to leave, just as
another knock was heard at the door. He opened it, encountering
four men, one of whom kicked the unoffending terrier; an
indignity which Pompilard resented by switching the aggressor
smartly twice round the legs, and then passed on. He had not
descended five steps when a bullet from a pistol grazed his
whiskers. “Not a bad shot that, my Southern friend!” said
the old man, deliberately continuing his descent.

Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he
was desirous that his wife should communicate with Mrs.
Berwick.

Inheriting a fortune from his mother, Albert Pompilard had
managed to squander it in princely expenditures before he was
twenty-five years old. The vulgar dissipations of sensualists
he despised. He abstained from wine and strong drink at a
time when to abstain was to be laughed at. With the costliest
viands and liquors on his table for guests, he himself ate sparingly
and drank cold water. Had he been as scrupulously
moral in the management of his soul as he was of his body, he
would have been a saint. But he was a spendthrift and a
gambler on a large scale.

Having ruined himself financially, he married. A little
money which his wife brought him was staked entire on a stock
operation, and won. Thence a new fortune larger than the first.
At thirty-five he was worth half a million. He took his wife,
two daughters, and a son to Paris, gave entertainments that
made even royalty envious, and in ten years returned to New
York a bankrupt. His wife died, and Pompilard appeared
once more at the stock board. Ill-luck now pursued him with
remorseless pertinacity, but never succeeded in disturbing his
equanimity. He was frightfully in debt, but the consideration
never for a moment marred his digestion nor his slumbers.
The complacency of a man contented with himself and the
world shed its beams over his features always.

At fifty, a widower, with three children, he carried off and
married Miss Aylesford, who at the time was on a visit to New
York, — a girl of eighteen, handsome, accomplished, and worth
half a million. In vain had her brother tried to open her eyes
to Pompilard's character as an inveterate fortune-hunter and

spendthrift. The wilful young lady would have her way.
Pompilard took possession, paid his debts with interest, and,
with less than one third of his wife 's property left, once more
tried his fortune in Wall Street. This time he won. At sixty
he was richer than ever. He became the owner of a domain
of three hundred acres on the Hudson,— built palatial residences,
— one in the country, and one on the favored avenue that
leads to Murray Hill, — bought a steamboat to transport his
guests to and from the city, — gave a series of fêtes, and kept
open houses.

But soon one of those panics in the money-market which
take place periodically to baffle the calculations and paralyze
the efforts of large holders of stocks, occurred to confound
Pompilard. In trying to hold his stocks, he was compelled
to make heavy sacrifices, and then, in trying to hedge, he
heaped loss on loss. He had to sell his acres on the Hudson,
— then his town house, — finally his horses; and at sixty-nine
we find him trying to get a mortgage for thirty thousand
dollars on five or six poor little houses, the last remnant from
the wreck of his wife 's property. In the hope of effecting this
he had persuaded his wife to communicate with her niece, Mrs.
Berwick.

The brother of Mrs. Pompilard, Robert Aylesford, had inherited
a large estate, which he had increased by judicious investments
in land on the site of Chicago, some years before
that wonderful city had risen like an exhalation in a night
from the marsh on which it stands. His wife had died in
child-birth, leaving a daughter whom he named after her, Leonora.
His own health was subsequently impaired by a malignant
fever, caught in humane attendance on a Mr. Carteret,
a stranger whom he had accidentally met at Cairo in Southern
Illinois.

Deeply chagrined at his sister's imprudent marriage, and feeling
that his own health was failing, Aylesford conceived a
somewhat romantic project in regard to his only child, Leonora.
During a winter he had passed in Italy he had become acquainted
with the Ridgways, a refined and intelligent family
from Western Massachusetts. One of the members, a lady,
kept a boarding-school of deserved celebrity in the town of
Lenbridge.

To this lady Aylesford took his little girl, then only two
years old, and said: “I wish you to bring her up under the
name of Leonora Lockhart, her mother 's maiden name, and
her own, though not all of it. When she is married, let her
know that the rest of it is Aylesford. She is so young she will
not remember much of her father. Keep both her and the
world in ignorance of the fact that she is born to a fortune. My
wish is that she shall not be the victim of a fortune-hunter in
marriage; and you will take all needful steps to carry out my
wish. I leave you the address of my man of business, Mr.
Keep, in New York, who will supply you with a thousand dollars
a year as your compensation for supporting and educating
her. Neither she nor any one else must know that even this
allotment is on her account. My physician orders me to pass
the winter in Cuba, and I may not return. Should that be my
lot, I look to you to be in the place of a parent to my child.
Her relations may suppose her dead. I shall not undeceive
them. Her nearest relative is her aunt, my sister, Mrs. Pompilard,
who, in the event of my death, will be legally satisfied
that such a disposition is made of my property that it cannot
directly or indirectly fall into the hands of that irreclaimable
spendthrift, her husband. As I have lived for the last twenty
years at the West, I do not think you will have any difficulty in
keeping my secret.”

Subsequently he said: “On the day of Leonora's marriage,
should she have passed her eighteenth year, the trustees of my
property will have directions to hand over to her the income.
Till that it is done, your lips must be sealed in regard to her
prospects. In the event of her remaining single, I have made
provisions which Mr. Keep will explain to you. I am resolved
that my daughter shall not have to buy a husband.”

Mrs. Ridgway accepted the trust in the same frank spirit in
which it was offered. Mr. Aylesford took leave of his little
girl, and before the next spring she was fatherless. Her eighteenth
birthday found her developed into a young lady of singular
grace and beauty, with accomplishments which showed
that the body had not been neglected in adorning the mind.
But the mystery that surrounded her family and origin produced
a shyness that kept her aloof from social intimacies.

Vainly did her attentive friends try to overcome her fondness
for solitary musings and rides. She was possessed with the
idea that she was an illegitimate child, though to this suspicion
she never gave utterance till candor seemed to compel it.

On a charming morning in June, as a young man, just
escaped from a law-office in New York for a week's recreation
among the hills of Lenbridge, was entering “the cathedral
road,” as it was called, overarched as it was by forest-trees,
and spread with an elastic mat of pine-leaves, he saw a young
lady riding a spirited horse, a bright-colored bay, exquisitely
formed, and showing high blood in every step. The sagacious
creature evidently felt the exhilaration of the fresh, balsamic
air, for he played the most amusing antics, dancing and curvetting
as if for the entertainment of a circus of spectators; starting
lightly and feigning fright at little shining puddles of water,
leaping over fallen stumps, but with such elastic ease and precision
as not to stir his rider in her seat, — and frolicking much
like a pet kitten when the ball of yarn is on the floor.

His mistress evidently understood his ways, and he hers, for
she talked to him and patted his glossy neck and seemed to
encourage him in his tricks. At last she said, “Come, now,
Hamlet, enough of this, — behave yourself!” and then he
walked on quite demurely. He traversed a cross-road newly
repaired with broken stones, and entered on the forest avenue.
But all at once Hamlet seemed to go lame, and the lady dismounted,
and, lifting one of his fore-feet, tried to extract a
stone that had got locked in the hollow of his sole. Her
strength was unequal to the task. The pedestrian who had
been watching her movements approached, bowed, and offered
his assistance. The lady thanked him, and resigned into his
hand the hoof of the gentle animal, who plainly understood that
something for his benefit was going on.

“The stone is wedged in so tightly, I fear it will require a
chisel to pry it out,” said the new acquaintance, whose name
was Henry Berwick. Then, after a pause, he added, “But
perhaps I can hammer it out with another stone.”

“Let me find one for you,” said Leonora, running here and
there, and searching as she held up her riding-habit.

Henry looked after her with an interest he had never felt

before for any one in the form of a young lady. How bewitchingly
that black beaver with its ostrich plumes sat on her head,
but failed to hide those luxuriant curls, — luxuriant by the
grace of nature and not of the hair-dresser! And then that
face, — how full of life and tenderness and mind! And how
admirably did its red and white contrast with the surrounding
blackness of its frame! And that figure, — how were its harmonious
perfections brought out by the simple, closely fitting
nankeen riding-habit trimmed with green!

While she was engaged in her search, Mr. Henry Berwick
dishonestly did his best to loosen the shoe. All at once, in the
most innocent manner, he exclaimed, “This shoe is loose, — it
has come off, — look here!”

And he held it up, just as Leonora handed him a stone.

He took the stone, and with one blow knocked out the fragment
that lay wedged in the hollow of the sole.

“Thank you, sir,” said Leonora.

“You are one of Mrs. Ridgway's young ladies, I presume,”
said Henry.

“Yes, I shall not be back in time for my music-lesson, if I
do not hurry.”

“There is a blacksmith not a quarter of a mile from here.
My advice to you is to stop and have this shoe refitted. Remember,
you have a mile of a newly macadamized road to
travel before you get home, and over that you will have to
walk your horse slowly unless you restore him his shoe.”

Leonora seemed struck by these considerations. “I will take
your advice,” she said, putting herself in the saddle with a
movement so quick and easy that Berwick could not interpose
to help her. But the horse limped so badly that she once more
dismounted.

“Let me lead him for you,” said Berwick, “I shall not have
to go a step out of my way.”

“You are very obliging,” replied the lady.

And the young man led the horse, while the young lady
walked by his side.

The quarter of a mile was a remarkably long one. It was a
full hour before the blacksmith's shed was reached, and then
Berwick, secretly giving the man of the anvil a dollar, winked

at him, and said aloud, “Call us as soon as you have fitted the
shoe”; and then added, in an aside, “Be an hour or so about it.”

The new acquaintances strolled together to a beautiful pond
within sight among the hills.

O that exquisite June morning, with its fresh foliage, its
clear sky, its pine odors, its wild-flowers, and its songs of birds!
How imperishable in the memories of both it became! How
much happier were they ever afterwards for the happiness of
that swift-gliding moment!

Leonora spied some harebells in the crevices of the slaty
rocks of a steep declivity, and pointed them out as the first of
the season.

“I must get them for you,” cried Berwick.

“No, no! It is a dangerous place,” said Leonora.

“They shall be your harebells,” said Berwick, swinging himself,
by the aid of a birch-tree that grew almost horizontally
out of the cleft of a rock, over the precipice, and snatching the
flowers. Leonora treasured them for years, pressed between
the leaves of Shelley's Poems.

Thus began a courtship which, three weeks afterwards, was
followed by an offer of marriage. Early in the acquaintance,
foreseeing the drift of Berwick's eager attentions, Leonora had
frankly communicated by letter her suspicions in regard to her
own birth.

In his reply Berwick had written: “I almost wish it may
be as you imagine, in order that I may the better prove to you
the strength of my attachment; for I do not underrate the desirableness
of an honorable genealogy. No one can prize more
than I an unspotted lineage. But I would not marry the woman
who I did not think could in herself compensate me for
the absence of all advantages of family position and wealth;
and whose society could not more than make up for the loss of
all social attractions that could be offered outside of the home
her presence would sanctify. You are the one my heart points
to as able to do all this; and so, Leonora, whether it be the bar
sinister or the ducal coronet that ought to be in your coat of
arms, it matters not to me. No herald's pen can make you
less charming in my eyes. Under any cloud that could be
thrown over your origin, to me you would always be, as Portia
was to Brutus, a fair and honorable wife; —

And yet not sad, if you were mine! So do not think that
any future development in regard to the antecedents of yourself
or of your parents can detract from an affection based on
those qualities which are of the soul and heart, and the worth
of which no mortal disaster can impair.”

To all which the imprudent young lady returned this answer:
“Do not think to outdo me in generosity. You judge
me independently of all social considerations and advantages;
I will do the same by you; for I know as little of you as you
do of me.”

They met the next morning, and Berwick said: “Is not this
a very dangerous precedent we are setting for romantic young
people? What if I should turn out to be a swindler or a
bigamist?”

“My heart would have prescience of it much sooner than
my head,” replied Leonora. “Women are not so often misled
into uncongenial alliances by their affections as by their passions
or their calculations. The lamb, before he has ever known a
wolf, is instinctively aware of an enemy's presence, even while
the wolf is yet unseen. If the lamb stopped to reason with
himself, he would be very apt to say, `Nonsense! it is no doubt
a very respectable beast who is approaching. Why should I
imagine he wants to harm me?'”

“But what if I am a wolf disguised as a lamb?” asked
Berwick.

“I am so good a judge of tune,” replied Leonora, “that I
should detect the sham the moment you tried to cry baa. Nay,
a repugnant nature makes itself felt to me by its very presence.
There are some persons the very touch of whose hand produces
an impression, I generally find to be true, of their
character.”

“An ingenious plea!” said Berwick with an affectation of
sarcasm. “But it does not palliate your indiscretion.”

“Very well, sir,” replied Leonora, “since you disapprove
my precipitancy, we will —”

Berwick interrupted the speech at the very portal of her
mouth, by surprising its warders, the lips.

And so it was a betrothal.

How admirably had Mrs. Ridgway behaved through it all!
How scrupulous she had been in withholding all intimations
of Leonora's prospective wealth! There were young men
among the Ridgways, handsome, accomplished, just entering
the hard paths of commercial or professional toil. How easy it
would have been to have hinted to some of them, “Secure this
young lady, and your fortune is made. Let a hint suffice.”
But Mrs. Ridgway was too loyal to her trust to even blindly
convey by her demeanor towards Leonora a suspicion that the
child was aught more than the dowerless orphan she appeared.

Berwick took a small house in Brooklyn, and prepared for
his marriage. Clients were as yet few and poor, but he did
not shrink from living on twelve hundred a year with the
woman he loved. He was not quite sure that his betrothed
was even rich enough to refurnish her own wardrobe. So he
delicately broached the question to Mrs. Ridgway. That lady
mischievously told him that if he could let Leonora have fifty
dollars, it might be convenient. The next day Berwick sent a
check for ten times that amount.

But after the wedding, an elderly gentleman, named Keep,
to whom Berwick had been introduced a few days before, took
him and the bride aside, and delivered to him a schedule of
the title-deeds of an estate worth a million, the bequest of the
bride's father, and the income of which was to be subject to
her order.

“But this deranges all our little plans!” exclaimed the bride,
with delightful naïveté.

“Well, my children, you must put up with it as well as you
can,” said Mr. Keep.

Berwick took the surprise gravely and thoughtfully. With
this great enlargement of his means and opportunities, were
not his responsibilities proportionably increased?