University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
CLIFFORD HALL.

Month after month rolled away, until three years
had passed since Warren Clifford's parting with his
adopted mother. She had fully intended to return
in a year, when she left home, but the fascinations of
continental society proved too strong for her resolution.
Mr. Clifford was as obedient as ever to her
caprices, and expressed no wish to revisit his native
country. Her letters to Warren, though not very
frequent, were always kind and tender, but she made
mention of no intention to return. Her triumphant
anticipations of a sojourn in Paris were more than
realized. The beautiful American, as she was usually
called, had become a star of the first magnitude, even
among the titled belles of the court. Her sayings
were quoted, her dress and manners copied, and her
path surrounded with flatterers. And yet Juno
Clifford had not learned the passionate lesson of love.
The most brilliant men in the realm had bowed at
her shrine, but she received their homage with the

cool pride of an empress. It was not that she had
strength of principle to guide her, for she was constantly
swayed by impulse, and her highest object in
life was her own happiness. But she had not yet
seen one who had power to quicken the play of her
languid pulses, and so she added to her reputation
for grace and beauty the distinction always
awarded to a correct life, and nowhere more prized
than in the midst of the voluptuous and dissolute.

She sat in her dressing-room one evening absorbed
in thought. Her restless spirit had become weary
of the life she led. There were no new acquaintances
to be made, no fresh hearts to be won. She was
tired of the homage, for which no effort was necessary,
and with the holy hush of the evening there
came to her a memory of the earnest-hearted boy
she had left behind her; of his worship of her
beauty, and his unselfish and grateful love. She had
very seldom thought of him of late, absorbed as she
had been, and in a continual whirl of fashionable dissipation.
His letters had been read with a merely
passing interest, and she had written him an occasional
note, with scarcely an effort to soothe the
disappointment her heart told her this long-continued
separation must have occasioned.

But this night her thoughts went back to him
very tenderly. She pleased herself by fancying how
much he would be grown and improved; how tall

he would be, and how graceful, for he gave rare
promise of grace, even in his early, suffering boyhood.
That he loved her as fondly as ever, she well
knew. Every American mail brought her a letter,
in his well-known hand, full of the most earnest and
tender expressions of affection. She recollected now,
with a feeling of self-reproach, that, absorbed in her
preparations for a brilliant assembly, she had scarcely
read his last letter. She rose, and sought for it
among the varied contents of her ebony writing-desk.
Then she drew a silver lamp toward her, and throwing
herself back in her chair, commenced its persual.
The chirography had become at once manly and
elegant, but the style was simple, and natural as
ever. Toward the close it said—

“Every day, sweetest mother, I pass many hours
looking at your farewell gift. Sometimes my heart
gets very heavy with this long parting. I see other
sons turn joyfully to seek loving mothers and happy
homes, and I crush back the tears I am too proud to
weep, as I think that, for three lonely years, home and
mother have been to me but a name. Then I walk
wearily into the pleasant room your parting cares made
so beautiful, and look upon your picture, until the
dream of a mother's love becomes a warm and bright
reality, and I almost expect the beautiful face to
bend smiling down from the canvas, and the bright

lips to drop a kiss upon my brow. Are you coming
some time, mother?”

The lady paused, still holding the letter in her
fingers with a kind of caressing clasp. A warm,
bright smile broke over her sparkling features, and
kindled her eyes. Her lips parted, and a murmured
“Dear child” escaped them. “He is really eloquent,”
she ejaculated after another silence; “not one of all
the flatterers surrounding me could have written half
so beautifully, for the unmistakable impress of truth
would have been wanting in their fine sentences.
The boy really thinks I'm an angel!”

Verily, that child's love was working wonders
when Juno Clifford talked of truth—she whose whole
life was but an embodiment of beautiful acting. “I
want to see him,” she mused on, “and why can't I?”
I have had enough of this humdrum life in Paris.
I am tired of it. Yes, I will see him.” Tinkle,
tinkle, rung out her little silver bell, and her quadroon
waiting-maid entered. “Jane,” she said in the
old, habitual tone of impatient authority, “send Mr.
Clifford to me; I want him now.”

In a moment more John Clifford entered. He
was a noble-looking man, or perhaps I should describe
him more correctly if I said a good-looking
man. His face was emphatically good. His calm,
English features wore the ruddy hue of hale and
hearty manhood. His form was square and stout,

indicating a high degree of muscular energy, combined
with great strength. His once soft brown
hair was fast becoming gray, and there were lines
about his mouth which suggested the idea of worthy,
and yet firm resolve. He was a very quiet man in
most things. You would never have suspected him
of being Juno Clifford's lover-husband, had you met
him outside of her boudoir, and still less of cherishing
in secret an ideal love, whose presence he summoned
to his side, to teach him patience with the
gay frivolity around him. His fiftieth birth-day was
near at hand, but he looked at least sixty. Already
he seemed a hale old man, “frosty, but kindly.” He
was very cheerful, however, in spite of the haunting
consciousness that something was wanting to him,
which should have made his life far better, and more
beautiful. More than ever was he proud of Juno.
Her peerless loveliness and regal pride made her,
wherever they went, the cynosure of surrounding
eyes; and more and more he felt that he owed her
the devotion of an eternity for consenting to gift him
with all this dower of grace and beauty. There was
a kind of proud humility in his manner, as he entered
the dressing-room, and stood beside her chair.

“Please to sit down,” she said, in a slightly imperious
tone. He obeyed her instantly. She folded
the open letter in her hand, and then looking earnestly

at him, she inquired, “Mr. Clifford, do you
never want to see Warren?”

“Certainly, I would like to see him. I often
think we have hardly done the poor child justice.
We call him by our own name, but we have never
legally adopted him. We took him from his home,
and his mother, and in six months left him, as lonely
and solitary as if he had not a friend in the world.
It is not quite right, certainly.”

“No, Mr. Clifford, and I am heartily tired of this
place. Isn't your business such, now, that Parks
could take charge of it?”

“Yes, certainly, very easily.”

“Well, have you still in your possession those
lovely grounds you purchased for a country seat, just
before we left home?”

“Yes, I have them still.”

“There is no house on them, of course?”

“No; our return seemed postponed for such an
indefinite period, I was undecided what to do with
the place.”

“Well, Mr. Clifford, I want to live there next
summer. You remember La Comtesse M—'s
beautiful villa we both admired so much? Well, La
Comtesse told me the architect and landscape gardener
who planned it are both out of employment.
I want you should send them over by the next vessel,
and have our place as nearly modelled after the villa

as possible. They can finish it by next spring; a
whole year. This summer we will visit England and
Germany, and this winter reside in Italy, and go
home in the spring. Does my plan suit you?”

“Perfectly, as all your plans do, provided you are
satisfied. I will send the men over, and write to
Parks by the same vessel.”

And so the architect and the gardener were sent
over, and with them a letter to Master Warren,
couched in Juno's most gentle and loving phrases.
She had persuaded Mr. Clifford to return, solely for
his sake, she wrote. She felt that it had been cruel
to leave him to his loneliness so long, but she was
coming. Soon as their summer residence was ready
for their reception, she should be with him.

The boy's heart thrilled with pleasurable anticipation
as he read it. In that hour he had no thought
for the mother who had cradled him on her breast.
During all these years, he had not once heard from
her, and her memory, though not dead utterly, slept
on, low down in his soul, a slumber too profound for
dreams.

And, one stone after another, Clifford Hall was
built up. The minutest directions were forwarded
from time to time, for the furnishing of every apartment;
and standing in the winter moonlight, within
her Italian villa, looking from her window over the
sluggish waters of the Po, Juno Clifford clasped her

hands, and speculated idly about that future, which
was so near, she could not see a single thing.

It was a bright May morning, on which the
Clifford family took possession of their new residence
They had reached Boston the night before, and they
drove out to their country-seat in their own carriage.
The architect and the gardener had made the most of
their materials. The carriage-drive wound through
an avenue of spacious horse-chestnuts, already odorous
with bloom. Looking out, between their trunks, you
could catch glimpses of playing fountains, and sparkling
streams; of green sunny banks, and thickets of
rose-trees, and of a summer-house built with the
classic elegance of a Grecian temple. A sudden turn
brought you for the first time in sight of the mansion.
It was built of pure, white stone, and the style of
the architecture was peculiarly light and graceful.
It was surmounted by a lofty observatory, and at the
western end was a miniature chapel, with its stained
glass windows, and cumbrous columns, forming a
pleasant contrast with the main building.

Scarcely deigning a look at all this loveliness
around her, Juno Clifford swept into the house. An
obsequious footman threw open the door of her
boudoir, and she walked proudly in. “Has Master
Warren Clifford arrived?” was her first question.

“No, madam, he cannot possibly get here before

evening. We did not hear of your arrival in time
for the news to reach him until last night.”

“Very well. Jane, you can take away my things.
I shall lie down for a half-hour, and then I will go
over the house. In the mean time you can ask Mr.
Clifford to unpack those pictures. I cannot trust the
servants to handle them, and I want to see them
hung this morning.”

All that day after her brief rest in the morning,
our idle Lady Juno was actually busy. They had
brought with them many costly gems of Italian art,
and she herself superintended their disposition about
her elegant rooms. Pictures were hung upon the
walls; rare, old masterpieces, worth thrice their weight
in gold. Out in the pleasure-grounds, graceful statues
were placed like sylvan deities beneath the leafy trees.
Water nymphs bent over the fountains, as if they had
paused in the very act of combing out their long
tresses, to listen to some dim, sweet melody of the
waves. A marble Flora stood among the beds of
variegated flowers with her graceful urn. Little gems
of European art were scattered all over the interior
of the mansion. Silver lamps, with garlands of raised
flowers; curious book-stands, and tiny tables, inwrought
with many an arabesque device, and a thousand
other little womanly trifles, at once betokened
refined taste, and most lavish expenditure.

Just under an old oak tree, that looked as if it

had withstood the blast of centuries with the bold
defiance of its green arms, had been dug a rustic well.
Already the stones were covered with moss, and the
plume-like ferns drooped over its margin. Even here
the lady left an index of her presence, and hung just
beside the oaken bucket, a golden drinking-cup fretted
with silver.

It was mid afternoon before her arrangements
were all completed, and she entered her dressing-room.
For once, she was quite satisfied; her expectations
had been surpassed. She threw herself down in a
chair by the window, and gazed out over the pleasure-grounds,
with a smile of triumph curling her lips.

“What will madam please to wear?” said the
soft tones of the quadroon, recalling her from her reverie.
They were waiting dinner for Warren, and she
was governed by a thought of him in the decision.

“Dress me in simple white muslin, Jane. I
don't want to frighten the poor child away from me
by Parisian splendors to which he is not accustomed.”

She had chosen well, as she acknowledged to herself,
standing before the mirror, when the business of
the toilet was completed. No other costume could
have suited so admirably the gentle, mother-like
character it was her purpose to assume. It seemed
even to enchance her beauty. Her dimpled arms
were bare from the shoulder, save a deep frill of
Mechlin lace. Her hair was braided with classic simplicity,

and wreathed about her head like a coronal,
and among its heavy folds lay a wreath of half-opened
water-lilies. She looked more beautiful, fresher,
younger even, than she had done for many years before.
She left her dressing-room, and joined her husband
on the terrace. He turned as she put her hand
through his arm, and whispered, with lover-like gallantry—“Fairer
than ever, Juno regina.”

It was only a half-hour before a carriage turned
up the drive, and stopped before the door. A young
gentleman alighted; a stranger, they thought, at the
first glance. He was taller than Juno, taller than even
Mr. Clifford; and yet he seized John Clifford's hand,
and called him father. Could that be Warren? It
must be, for he springs to her side, he clasps her fervently
in his arms, and whispers, with his lips against
her cheek—“My mother, my own sweet, beautiful
mother!”

“Bless me, Warren; why, how you have grown!”
she exclaimed, at length, extricating herself from his
embrace—“Stand off there, and let me look at you!”

He had indeed grown very handsome. His figure
was tall, but graceful; his forehead was fair, open,
and white as an infant's. On it clustered heavy
brown curls, and his clear blue eyes looked out from
beneath, with all the innocent earnestness peculiar to
their expression in early childhood. His features
were purely Grecian, and round his mouth was a look

of tempered firmness, which redeemed its beauty from
the charge of feminine softness. Juno was entranced;
she had thought of him as a child; grown indeed,
but still small enough to sit at her feet, and bear any
amount of petting. She found him a young gentleman,
whom her heart acknowledged as the handsomest
person she had ever yet met; whose low, musical tone
thrilled her with a vague, indefinable transport;
whose caresess called the blushes to her olive cheek,
as her husband's had never done; and yet she said to
herself, approvingly, “Surely it is well to love him, I
am his mother!” He was but seventeen years old,
and yet so fully developed in mind and person, that
he would usually have been taken for at least twenty-one.
He had faithfully improved the advantages
afforded him, and there was a quiet ease in his manner,
and a refined eloquence in his conversation, with
which Juno was momently more and more enchanted.

Mr. Clifford retired early, as was his habit on all
occasions, and for half the night Juno retained by her
side the child of her adoption. They went out together,
and wandered to and fro among the shrubbery, where
the moonbeams rained light and glory upon their
path, and Juno talked of the yet brighter moonlight
that flooded the glorious ruins of Italy. She told
him stories of many a land—the castled Rhine, the
blue lakes of Switzerland, and the French girls singing
beneath their vines; and somehow, by some imperceptible

channel, the conversation always wandered
back to the lonely hours she had passed without him,
and the sweet memories of the childish love he had
given her. She said those memories had lain warm
and bright at her heart, during all the months and
years of absence, and Warren listened and loved, and
thanked God that this gifted and beautiful being had
been given him for a mother. The love he had cherished
so many months in loneliness and solitude, seemed
springing into a wilder, and quicker life—it was becoming
akin to worship, and yet it was pure as Heaven.
It was such as a child might have felt, in those
blessed days of the earth's infancy, when angels did
not disdain to walk with mortals, for some sunbright
seraph, who sang him to sleep in a long, blue day of
summer,—so pure it was, and so beautiful; and ever
its key-note was that blessed word mother, which the
immaculate Son of God has not disdained to hallow
with the utterance of his divinity.

They walked in, out of the moonlight, and sat
down once more in the magnificent boudoir. Juno's
arm was around him whom she called her son. She
drew him to her bosom, with all the mother-like tenderness
of her earlier love; and then, with her heart
beating against his side as it had never beat before,
she bent smiling over him, twining in her fingers the
soft length of his brown curls, and listening to the
thrice-told story of his love and his loneliness.