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UNIVERSITY
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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT
FUND GIVEN IN 1891 By

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

 

 

 

 
Cornell University Library
PS 1525.D5S4

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SEACLIFF

oR

THE MYSTERY OF THE WESTERVELTS.
SEACLIFF

OR

THE MYSTERY OF THE WESTERVELTS.

BY

J. W. DE FOREST,

AUTHOR OF ‘ ORIENTAL ACQUAINTANCE,” “‘ EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCE,”’
ETC., ETC.

BOSTON:

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY.
M DCCC LIX.
Fntered according to Act of Congress. in the year 1859, by
Pumps, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

124-93 £8
93
S

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. OU. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
I.
It.
TIL.

XVII.
XVIII.
xIXx.
xx
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
xxv.
XXVI.
XXVIII.

CONTENTS.

 

THE HOUSE OF SEACLIFF . .
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF . .
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF .
DOMICILIATION . . . . .
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL . .
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL .

A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL

MR. WESTERVELT 3 - e
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY . ‘
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES ‘ ‘
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY . 7
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY  .
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE 3
A FLIRTATION, AND A FINGER-RING
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. nn
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT . ‘
SAD HEART, AND SILLY HEAD .

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN .°** . -
CAKES AND ALE . ‘ ‘ .

A RAY OF LIGHT . ‘ 2 3
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES . - ‘
REJECTED ADDRESSES . . 3
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES
THE OLD, OLD STORY . a :
WESTERVELT, SENIOR . - 2

OPEN PLEASURES, AND SECRET SORROWS

.

PAGE
7
14
29
43
53
67
83
95
107
122
137
153
170
187
204
219
238
254
269
274
287
305
319
835
846
356
868
CHAP.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
xxXxX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXII.

CONTENTS.

TRYING TO BELL THE CAT.

THE MYSTERY FORCED

: CONFESSION . .
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH

FUNEREAL ..
TWO YEARS AFTER .

PAGE
. 383
399

/, 414

430
. 448
462
 

sy |

 

 

 

SEACLIFF.

CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE OF SEACLIFF.

and Mrs. Westervelt, and to the two Misses Wester-
‘ velt, in Switzerland. /

I had left them on the summit of the Righi at sunrise,
leaning over the awful outlying brink of the alp, and look-
ing downward upon an ocean of clouds dazzling-white, surging,
billowy, and cleft in fleecy chasms, through which appeared
the gleam of many lakes, and the stony or snowy brows of
many mountains. Around us sightseers from various lands
were clustered in silent companies, earnest in gaze and rever-
ently wonder-stricken. A revelation, like that of an immacu-
late Righi sunrise, is not received lightly by the majority of
intelligent creatures, nor passes away without making memor-
able some of those who stand with us on the mount and
behold the glory. Now, as I drove up to the country-house
of the Westervelts, I called to mind distinctly the grouping
of their four figures on the bald, breezy Swiss summit. The
painting was so clear before me that I half glanced around to
see the infinite alpine mist, the shadowy valleys, the seamed
and gray precipices, the far-off flash of glaciers, the solemn,
unconquerable, cruel snows of the everlasting mountain

q I’ was exactly a year since I had said good-bye to Mr.
8 SEACLIFF.

heads. There was nought but green New England hillocks,
the white dwelling half hidden by trees, and beyond it a
shimmer of sunny sea.

The house stood in one of the southwesterly townships of
Connecticut, crowning a, bluff which fronted sharply upon the
narrow arm of ocean, called Long Island Sound. The
grounds, varied and full of. character by Nature’s gift, gayly
toned with bright hillocks and little dells of shadow, or
wrought into stronger relief of ledge and leafage, were well
adapted to the modern style of landscape gardening after
which they had lately been remodelled. No reflection was
there here of Versailles Vandalism, laid out stiff and stark
by grim undertaker Le Notre. The general appearance of
the two or three acres was already agreeable and tending
toward the picturesque, although no one feature of the land-
-scape was surprising or in the least suggestive of alpine sub-
limities. The dwelling itself was far from worthy of an
environment so tasteful. The work doubtless of some prede-
cessor to the present proprietor, it bespoke those dark ages
of American country architecture previous to Downing, and
seemed to assert, with all the force of its snobbish individu-
ality, that it had no sympathy with the natural graces which
surrounded it. It was one of those mock Parthenons, be-
loved of our fathers thirty years ago; a temple of brick and
mortar, coated over with stucco veined and lined in shabby
imitation of marble; breaking out toward the south in a
staring, shameless pediment, and Ionic célumns which shaded
Yankee windows; and flanked .on either side by modern
wings, built solely for convenience, in abrupt disregard of the
sham classicism of the edifice. On each side of the main
‘body there was a slight one-story veranda, running forward
from the wing and joining the heavy front portico. Alto-
gether the building reminded me of a clumsy translation from
the Greek, eked out with modern supplement, appendix, and
commentaries. Partial amends were made for these absurd-
ities by the beautiful outlook of the house, standing as it did-
THE HOUSE OF SEACLIFF. 9

on a prominent turfy hillock, and facing the mid-day sun, the
shining sheet of the Sound, and, far away, the green and yel-
low belts of the Long Island shore.

In approaching from the neighboring village I had left the
highway and trotted my hired buggy along the slowly ascend-
ing curve of a private road which stopped at the eastern gate
of the grounds. Tying my horse at a post, under shelter of
a thicket of trimmed cedars, I walked up a broad, winding
path to the make-believe majesty of the portico. The door
was open, giving me a glance down a narrow hall which ran
through the mansion. That heavy shouldered, long armed,
brief nosed Hibernian maiden, who ministers so generally to
the domestic comfort or discomfort of New England family
life, was passing at the moment on some errand of cleanli-
ness, made manifest by her dustpan and duster. Handing
her my card, with a request to see the ladies, I stepped flur-
riedly into the untenanted parlor and waited. Now was the
time for an elfin mob of reminiscences and anticipations,
doubts and hopes, to assail me. Happily for human manners
and morals, a certain amount of diffidence comes to most per-
sons by birthright, and an average man must see a great
deal of the world before he can dissipate his entire legacy of
bashfulness. It is a circumstance that we all complain of at
times ; but we may feel sure that if it were not for the best, it
would not be so. How many blunders, how many exhibi-
tions of bad taste, how much impertinence and brutality, how
many ruinous follies and crimes even, are we saved from in
our years of youthful indiscretion by a decent hamper of
‘youthful diffidence. Show me a youngster with a brow un-
blushing, and I will show you one of the devil’s adopted
children. Notwithstanding a city breeding, flirtations with
boarding-school belles, and two years of pleasuring in Eu-
rope, I had not yet, at the age of twenty-four, turned all my
native gold of modesty into current social brass, and therefore
my heart beat sensibly under its glossy shirt-bosom, as T lis-

tened for the advance of female drapery along the flooring of
1*
10 SEACLIFF.

the hall. The Misses Westervelt were beautiful girls; it was
a matter of wide dispute which was the most beautiful; as
the Bernesque poets express it, each was fairer than the
other. My susceptible southern friend, Boynton, used to re-
proach me with being an unloving man, incapable of earnest
affection for woman, and unworthy of what he, in his senti-
mental way, styled the highest, purest duty and privilege of
manhood—marriage. Boynton-was engaged himself; on pro-
bation for the time being, and, as a matter of course, mightily
enamored; his face set toward the altar, like Christian’s
toward the Holy City. Greatly was I affected by the utter-
‘ances of his enthusiasm, notwithstanding the somewhat ludi-
crous earnestness of his pale lovelorn face, and the chanting
southern accent with which he enunciated his prose poetry.
To the depths of my soul I felt his reproach, and wished that
it were false, while I feared that it was true. But Boynton
would have been inclined to absolve me from that bitter accu-
sation of emotional barrenness, had he known the tremors
with which I used to meet the Misses Westervelt, one or
both of them, I could not for a long time tell which. Amer-
ican women charm American men easily at home, but still
more easily in a foreign land. Many are the love-affairs
which blossom in Europe, to ripen into marriage in America.
All along the course of the grand tour, in every mouldering
ruin, in every famed cathedral, by every irised cascade, on
every alpine summit, are there invisible altars to Hymen,
where incipient husbands have bowed, and vowed, and sacri-
ficed.

Hat in hand, I stood for two or three minutes by the front
windows; and then, as no one came, I paced slowly to the
other end of the room, led on by a straggling line of pictures.
There was a landscape of no significance; a modern half-
length, clearly:a portrait; 2 Madonna which looked like a
Carlo Dolci; and a fair copy of Guido’s terrible Beatrice
Cenci. Beautiful that pale calm face is, beyond the beauty
of Grecian goddesses, but terrible also, in its grief that is un-
THE HOUSE OF SEACLIFF. 11

utterable, its remorse that is yet not penitence, and its despair
that is as placid as sleep. As I looked, I was suddenly im-
pressed with a likeness in the woful girlish countenance to
the younger Miss Westervelt. The discovery was a doubly
noticeable one, because it explained a mystery. Very often,
as I sat, or walked, or rode by the side of Genevieve, partic-
ularly when the moonlight fell on her features, making them
paler and more pensive than their wont, the idea had crossed
me that, somewhere or other, at some important moment, in
some agitating circumstance, I had seen and watched her
with the profoundest pity and sympathy. The feeling was a
vivid one, although I could not connect it with anything in
my memory ; it made me regard her with an interest which I
should not otherwise have accorded to a precocious girl of
sixteen; it wrought an atmosphere of romance around her,
and seemed to connect her, not only with my past, but with
my future; it was the only thing, perhaps, which withheld
me from sacrificing all my attention and admiration to the
sweet, Madonna-like face and being of her sister Mary. The
illusion was cornered now, and robbed of the wings of mys-
tery with which it had haunted me. It retreated within the
square, gilded prison of the picture-frame, resolved itself into
the well-known features of the Beatrice, and. became a mere
interesting fact without a particle of poetic power. “Ah,
Genevieve !” whispered I to myself, “you have lost by it.”

The interest of this reverie held me so close, that for a
while I did not notice a murmur of conversation which arose
in a back room connecting by a door with the end of the par-
lor where I stood. I was recalled to myself by hearing a
man’s voice utter these strange words: “I tell you I have
no pity!”

I turned and stared at the door with just that simple sur-
prise which most mortals would have felt under the circum-
stances. The voice was a full, fine and commanding one,
although muffled by the panels, and deepened by anger into an
utterance much like that of one of those stage ruffians whom
12 SEACLIFF.

we Americans call actors. Good heavens! thought I, what
unmerciful individual is that? Can Mr. Westervelt be lec-
turing his wife in such a fierce fashion? I never thought him
a hard husband. But perhaps he is correcting one of the
Misses Westervelt. Nonsense! he is probably admonishing
a thievish servant.

While I stood siauteauael the answer to the threat
came; an answer in womanish tones, pleading and tearful,
though I distinguished no words. Stifled and stern the mas-
culine utterance retorted : “ Quick then! or I will expose you
and myself together !”

What a hypocritical old ruffian! I meditated. Is it possi-
ble that quiet, creamy Mr. Westervelt talks in that style to
women? Well, I must get away from here;—I shall have
the air of an eavesdropper.

I turned hurriedly, and set off on tiptoe for the opposite
end of the deep parlor. Dumas’s heroes, pinks of courtesy
and spotless lilies of chivalry as he represents them, are
never ashamed to gain information by the frailty of a wain-
scot, or to. dive into family secrets through a keyhole; but
our American education is stupid compared with the Pari-
sian, and, instead of rejoicing in my discovery, I felt horri-
bly annoyed. It was clear that my entrance, unheralded as
it was by the door-bell, had not become known to the house-
hold at large; and that some members of it, supposing this
back room to be for the present a place of the strictest pri-
vacy, had repaired thither to fight out an old quarrel. What
if they should come in upon me and discover in my face that
I had been an ear-witness of their squabbles! I felt that I
should need all the refined brass of Dumas’s shabby genitle-
men, to be equal to such an emergency. I was still squeak-
ing across the room on my patent-leather toes, when I heard
a scuffing behind the door, followed in quick succession by a
click of the lock, a creak of the hinge, a hasty justle of
woman’s raiment and a stifled exclamation as of surprise and
alarm. Instinctively, and altogether against my very honor-
THE HOUSE OF SEACLIFF. 13

able intentions, I looked backward over my shoulder. No
face was visible, but I caught a glimpse of a plaid silk of
dead-leaf colors disappearing from the opening, as its wearer
retreated and hurriedly pulled to the door. The voices
hushed their muffled altercation, and the mysterious threat-
ener had evidently concluded not to expose himself just at
present.

“What a reception!” I muttered. “Is nobody coming, so
that I can make my compliments and be off? I wonder if I
shall see the Misses Westervelt at all. I wonder if either of
them will wear a plaid silk of dead-leaf colors. I wonder
what is the matter in the family. I wouldn’t marry into it
for a million.” :

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF.

another minute it became clear that I was about to

Yi received. I heard, floating down the stairway,

that perfumed rush and rustle which breathes from

the robes of woman,—that voice of lace and satin which has

caused my heart and the heart of every properly constituted

man to beat so often and so violently,—that eerie silken whis-

per which makes us start and look up even when the siren,

who causes it, passes our lonely rooms unseen, through som-
bre hotel entries.

Preparing my face for a smile, and clearing my throat for
the salaams, I awaited the Misses Westervelt. I had already
forgotten the shocking dialogue of the mysterious boudoir ;
the descending enchantment had driven it from my spirit; a
new spell was upon me. They entered lightly and gracefully,
first Mary and then Genevieve.

“Tam glad to see you again, Mr. Fitz Hugh,” said Mary,
in her sweet quiet way, as though the mild Madonna of Carlo
Dolci had spoken. “We were out in the garden tending our
flowers, or we shouldn’t have made you wait so long. You
must excuse Mamma, she has a headache, and can only send
her compliments.”

She gave me her hand frankly, and then waved the rosy-
white fingers toward a chair. In the mean time Genevieve
had only saluted me with a reserved little bow, and just
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 15

enough of a smile to show me how sharply, delicately cut
were her aristocratic and somewhat.haughty lips.

“Thank you, Miss Westervelt,” said I, “This is more
agreeable to me than the Righi. That was a parting, and
this is a meeting.”

I was not afraid, it will be seen, to pay a bold compliment
to the Misses Westervelt. The truth is, that I felt as if I
knew them well, because I had travelled several weeks with
them ; for a month’s journey in company gives a closer ac-
quaintance than a year of ordinary intercourse. In society
the mass of people have few startling topics in common, and
still fewer interests; but among heroic ruins, solemnizing ca-
thedrals, revered works of art and life-pictures of strange
peoples, sensations rapidly sympathize, and thoughts become
charmingly interchangeable. This is not all the explanation,
but this is enough for the present purpose.

“Oh, but the Righi!” said she. “Just think again of the
Righi before you prefer our parlor to it. We had a carpet
of clouds, you know, instead of a Brussels. And then the
lakes, the awful white mountains, the blinding glaciers, the ”—
she checked herself with a little blush at her own enthusiasm.

“Very true,” said I; “but I bring all those things with
me; I have them in my mind’s eye at this moment; they
got into the buggy with me at my hotel. The mere thought
of calling on my old friends, summoned up the Righi. By
the way, I see that you have some mementos of Europe’
here.”

“The pictures? Oh, yes, we couldn’t resist the temptation
of buying a copy or two. We chose one Carlo Dolci, you
see, in spite of Ruskin.” .

“ But they are not all copies, are they?” I asked. “There
is one, I see, that resembles both of you slightly. Is it meant
for a portrait of either of you?”

“Jt is my mother’s portrait,” replied Mary, gravely, with
a glance at the half-length over the mantel. “It was taken
the year she was married.”
16 SEACLIFF.

“Not the present Mrs. Westervelt, you understand, Mr.
Fitz Hugh,” said Genevieve, now speaking for the first time.
“You know, or shall know, that our present mamma is only
a step-mamma.”

“T am aware,—I remember,” responded I, passing hastily
over the thorny subject of step-motherhood. “Mrs. Wester-
velt is a very charming lady.”

“She charms papa, I believe,” said Genevieve, coolly,—
‘and some other people.”

I was quite used to Genevieve’s little satirical ways, and
only smiled at a speech which I considered more flippant

“than malicious. Miss Westervelt took the affair more seri-
ously, and gave her sister a beseeching glance of caution;
but the latter had evidently been stirred up to bitterness
by some recent development of step-maternity; and 650,
paying no attention to the silent admonition, she went on
in her tirade with a brisk sparkling energy, like the first
flurry of a lighted lucifer. “There is one experience, Mr.
Fitz Hugh, that you men never can appreciate, and that
is the happiness of a young lady,—say a couple of young
ladies,—-over whose welfare and prospects broods the love
of a step-mother. You are not so constantly in the nest
as we are; besides, you can struggle out of the step-feathers,
if you don’t find: them agreeable; you can choose your own
element, like ducklings who have been hatched by a hen.
Mr. Fitz Hugh, did you ever fancy the condition of a chicken
gathered under the motherly quills of a porcupine? I have,
and J assure you that I think it is no laughing matter.”

“Hush, Genevieve!” said Mary. “ Mr. Fitz Hugh doesn’t
understand your extravaganzas ; and, if he does, I hope he
will be kind enough not to notice them.”

“T am as discreet as a tomb, as a pyramid,” replied I.
“Tn fact I understand nothing, and confess that. Miss Gene-
vieve has completely mystified me.”

I had already reverted in thought to the plaid silk of dead
leaf colors, and for the first-time I glanced at the dresses of
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 17

the young ladies to see their tint and fashion. I suspected
that Genevieve had been the misused female of the back
boudoir, and that papa had threatened vengeance upon her
for thwarting the authority or happiness of step-mamma, only
I could detect no sort of sense in that denunciation of uni-
versal exposure. Neither she nor her sister wore anything
like a plaid, not even in the shape of a checked scarf or
ribbon. Both were dressed. as French ladies dress, and as
most women who trust their own taste dress, in broad sheets
of plain color, contrasting only in masses and unbroken by
any frivolous deformities of crossings, stripings, prismatic
blotchings or kaleidoscope patterns. To be more particular,
Mary wore a skirt of green silk, Genevieve a skirt of blue
silk, and both had black silk bodices. The auburn locks of
the elder sister, and the flaxen blonde ones of the younger
were alike unadorned, except by their own luxurious braid-
ings and wavy droopings. Still suspecting that the spirited
and satirical junior of the couple had been the oppressed
heroine of the boudoir scene, I began to ponder whether she
had had time, in the interval between that and her appear-
ance in the parlor, to change her attire. I am not ashamed
to confess that in those days I was too ignorant of the mys-
teries of the female toilet to decide the question. I have
learned better since ; but I still declare that a man is unlucky
who has no sisters; that he labors under a serious disad-
vantage in studying the multitudinous, the ever-present, and
ever-fascinating problem of womanhood.

I was getting into a state of distraction which would soon
have made me absurd in the eyes of the Misses Westervelt,
had not their attention and mine been diverted by a new in-
cident. A trampling of masculine heels in the portico, and
then a confident clamor of voices in the hall told the arrival
of some persons who apparently felt themselves at home.

“They have come back?” said Mary, glancing at her sis-
ter. “Why, they but this moment went out.”

“Out at one door, and in at another,” replied Genevieve.
18 SEACLIFF.

“TI presume Cousin Jule found it too hot; she always finds it
too hot or too cold. Our cousins the Van Leers,” she added,
in explanation to me. “Not own cousins, but relatives of
Mrs. Westervelt.”

Alarum, sounding of trumpets, as it were, and enter the
Van Leers. First came a lady of about twenty-seven, me-
dium sized, walking well, dark-haired, black-eyed, self con-
scious, and terribly fashionable; a woman of the world most
distinctly, who had seen all the life she could, held etiquette
at her fingers’ ends, and knew exactly what she was about,
every moment of her modish existence. Then followed two
hulking, strongly-built men, evidently brothers, the one thirty-
five and the other twenty-five. They had the same massive -
dull features, the same Beeotian brown eyes, the same enor-
mous chestnut moustaches; both alike, also, were dressed in
the latest morning fashion, and laid defiant exterior claim to
the character of dandy and man-about-town. The eldest had
prematurely lost his front hair, so that his naturally low fore-
head showed a counterfeit loftiness. Lastly appeared a fop-
pish youth of about twenty-two, much shorter and lighter in
frame than his predecessors, the face of him round and lively,
his eyes small black and shiny, his step quick and skipping,
his whole air full of a conceit which was half amusing, half
offensive. The lady and gentlemen bowed as I was presented,
but did not trouble themselves to offer me a remark. The
skipping-jack youth skated lightly about the room for a few
seconds, like an insect upon water, until, hitting against the
piano-stool, he forthwith seated himself upon it and thrummed
in cold blood and unprovoked, the brindist of Lucrezia Bor-
gia. His two heavy seniors fell upon a sofa, yawned and
sucked the jasper heads of their canes. Had they entered
as strangers, I should have supposed that here were three
beaux for the Misses Westervelt, and should accordingly
have left the field free to them by paying my compliments
and taking my departure, but as they were only cousins, I
kept my post and waited for them to disencumber the parlor
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 19

They had no such delicate intentions, however; the lady
complained to my two pretty hostesses of the dreadful heat;
the two men on the sofa threw in a few words concerning a
proposed fishing excursion. Altogether they seemed to me
under-bred people, whose parvenudity could not be hidden by
any cunning of tailors and mantua-makers.

I considered myself an intimate acquaintance of the Misses
Westervelt, and therefore did not feel annoyed at being left
for a moment to the society of mine own beaver. While the
others talked, I busied myself in looking’ at Genevieve and
speculating on her possible connection with the mystery of
‘the boudoir, but after studying her earnestly for two or three
minutes, I simply came to the conclusion at last that she was
unquestionably a beauty. Her form was small, but very
elegant ; her features were uncommonly regular, delicate, and
spirituel ; her lip was the most flexible, the most patrician,
the haughtiest that I knew ; her eyes were blue-gray, but as
eloquent in their mute speech as the dark orbs of Rome; and
her whole face was refined, although it could not be quite
tender, because of a gleam of pride and a sparkle of satire.
On the whole, she was a wonder of beauty and expression,
considering how small she was, and that she was only seven-
teen.

Presently my reverie was broken by a remark of the lady
cousin, who, it turned out, was wife of the elder Van Leer.
“Your father has just about reached New York,” she ob-
served.

“ Exactly!” struck in the skipping-jack, spinning round on
the piano-stool. “Just about having his pocket picked in
the Canal-street station.” And here he went off in a boastful
narrative concerning an adventure of his own with a pick-
pocket, in which the gentleman of the swell-mob suffered
painful discomfiture, getting his thievish wrist broken by the
tremendous gripe of the skipping-jack.

So Mr. Westervelt was not at Seacliff, and had not been
there since early morning! Who then, in the name of Blue-
20 SEACLIFF.

beard’s wives, was that dreadful man in the back boudoir who
was so devoid of pity, and so anxious to expose himself?
And who was the other, the woman, whose very voice seemed
to cower and tremble at his feet, who dared not even weep
loudly, and to whose pleadings he returned such harsh an-
swer? The idea crossed my mind that they might have
been Mr. and Mrs. Van Leer, playing shuttlecock with the
matrimonial doves, in angry forgetfulness that the holy birds
came from Paradise. Nothing more likely, thought I, smil-
ing inwardly at the cruel supposition, for I had the common
incredulity of bachelors concerning the happiness of married
people, and in short was an ignoramus of life, as will be often
visible in this history.

At that moment a firm masculine ‘step came along the hall
from the interior haunts of the dwelling. Here is another
hook to hang a guess upon, thought I, and assiduously
watched the doorway. Entered the dandy, the diner-out, the
Apollo of Gothamite tailors, the man who drew at sight on
ladies’ hearts, the unrivalled manager of fancy balls and pri-
vate theatricals, the high priest of Fifth Avenue mysteries,
Frank Somerville, Esquire, Attorney at Law. He was a
very noticeable man in person as well as in manners and
character. He must have been thirty-seven at that moment,
and he had seen dissipation enough to waste the ruddiest
health; yet he was as erect, as fresh, as unwrinkled, as
graceful in port as if Father Time had but just brought him
to the first full perfection of manhood. Nature seemed to
have gifted him with that imperishable beauty, that eternal
youth, the ideal of which we see in statues of Grecian gods
and heroes. Five feet ten and finely proportioned, he had the
features of an Achilles, a clear pale complexion, stern dark-
gray eyes, waving -glossy black hair and a heavy moustache
unequalled in curl and unsurpassed in blackness. I had ob-
served him in Paris as one of the most perfectly Gallicized
Americans that ever trod a boulevard; in London as a prime
man-about-town, indistinguishable to my eyes from the purest
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 21

bloods of the English aristocracy; and I had heard of him
in Italy as the rival of Russian princes, the conqueror of
contesse and marchesine. It was not agreeable to find him
here at Seacliff, ready perhaps to dispute with me the owner-
ship of any air-castles that I should seek to erect’ around
either or both of the Misses Westervelt.

He walked into the room quietly and gravely, with no
effort at effect. Evidently it would be impossible to pick
flaws in his manners so long as he chose to keep the polished
side of them toward me. I noticed that Genevieve colored
and only half glanced at him as he entered, and that Mary
introduced him to me with a constrained air which seemed to
indicate some stronger feeling than mere youthful embarrass-
ment. Mrs. Van Leer’s eyes, on the contrary, flashed with
frank gratification, and she beckoned the new-comer to her
side with an easy boldness which gave one the idea of rela-
tionship, and disagreed strangely with the excited blush that
tinted her cheeks. That they were not relatives, and that the
lady was simply one of the numberless fascinated ones, I soon
discovered. “How are you, Mr. Somerville ?—How do you
find yourself?—Got rested, my dear feller?” were the sal-
utations of the skipping-jack and the two Beeotian brothers.

“T am really glad to see that you are able to be about,”
observed Mrs. Van Leer, with a smile that was meant to be
charmingly saucy. “ How imprudent it was of you to come
all the way from New York in one morning! Oh, don’t pro-
test that you are well; you hadn’t strength enough to go out
with us, you know. I do hope that the country air will set
you all right again.”

The smile and the look with which Somerville listened to
these trivialities formed an expression that was deliciously
adulatory ; it seemed to tell Mrs. Van Leer that he was per-
fectly entranced with her badinage, and considered it the
liveliest, the cleverest, that he had heard in a long time.

“There is a prospect of my improvement,” said he. “I
have the pleasure of congratulating Mrs. Van Leer on the
22 SEACLIFF.

beneficent effects of country air. It turns the fairest lily to
@ rose.”

“What a shameless flatterer!” whispered the lady, pre-
tending to shake her ringlets at the compliment; but her very
skirts rustled with satisfaction, and her face became more
roseate than before.

« Ah, Sis! everybody knows that you hate adulation,” ma-
liciously observed the skipping-jack, who, it appeared, was
Mrs. Van Leer’s brother, and called himself Mr. Frederick
William Hunter.

After a while Somerville came over to me, remarking that
he remembered having supped with me in Paris. That
supper, eaten at the Maison “Dorée by two dozen Americans,
in honor pf somebody’s election, I perfectly well recollected ;
nor had I forgotten the presence of Somerville, who that
evening dawned on my acquaintance in the character of the
prince of good fellows, the greatest of convivialists; but I
was surprised and a trifle flattered that my own youthful and
very timid assistance on the occasion had made any impres-
sion on his memory. I told him so frankly, observing that it
was very kind in him thus to distinguish my twenty-fourth
part of the festivity. The smile with which he answered this
remark was peculiarly winning and gratifying, it seemed to
say: “I am charmed that you think so much of my good
opinion ; let us be friends forever.” Then he turned gayly
to Mrs. Van Leer, and called on her to acknowledge that here
at last was a modest man.

“ Every one is modest in your company, Mr. Somerville,”
was her reply, spoken in a flippant tone, but with a coaxing
face. ,

“ By contrast to my own conceit, I suppose,” said he, laugh-
ingly, but looking fervent thanks for her implied acknowl-
edgment of his crushing superiority. Such was his usual
method of receiving a compliment, as I found when I knew
him better. He seemed to think so much of it as coming
from you,—he had such an air of sticking it proudly in the
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 23

most conspicuous button-hole of his memory,—that he left
you in the thankfullest frame of mind imaginable, feeling
moreover that you could not say or do enough for him in
future. It was like offering a lady a bouquet, and seeing her
place it in her bosom. In such a case it is the donor who
is the obliged person, and it is the recipient who confers a
favor.

The conversation soon became general, for Somerville
made it so. He tossed off several amusing subjects in suc-
cession, started people on the tracks best suited to them, and
seduced even the two Van Leer mummies into a delusive
show of liveliness. Indeed, the charm of his society did not
proceed so much from the wit or wisdom of what he said, as
from his tact in tempting you to reply. This, however, I did
not then clearly perceive ; this I discovered long afterwards,
and by dint of much observation ; for Somerville was a hard
man to find out, because he was so very agreeable. But,
clever as he was, and interesting as the whole circle had
become under his influence, I could not be diverted from
noting his voice and manner, with a view to decide whether
he was the man of mysterious exposures. Rapidly I became
convinced that the mere suspicion of such a thing did him
the harshest, stupidest injustice. His deportment, to speak
figuratively, consisted entirely of lines of beauty, undeformed
by a single straight mark or angle. His voice was a luxury
to hear; mellow, powerful, varied, rhythmical, delicious, and
reminding one of the medium notes of a fine organ; very
different indeed from the tones of the invisible miscreant
of the boudoir, which, muffled as they were by the heavy
door, had still reached: me hoarse and contorted with pas-
sion. Somerville may be a dangerous man to ladies, I
concluded; but it is not in his nature to treat them with
coarseness and violence.

I turned again to the eldest Van Leer, and, after a very
brief trial, brought him in guilty. That he was just the man
to bully a woman, became more evident to me every time that
24 SEACLIFF.

I ran my eye over his flat forehead, unintellectual breadth of
face, heavy jaws, pugilistic build, and other indications of a
most fleshly nature. To be sure, there seemed to be no sense
in his telling his own wife that he would expose her and him-
self together; but, on the other hand, what intelligence or
appropriateness of utterance could you expect from the anger
of such a manifest barbarian? Then Mrs. Van Leer wore
a check of green and crimson, which might easily be mis-
taken for an arrangement of dead-leaf colors. Yes, you are
the domestic hero, thought I, and if Carlyle were only here,
you would have a worshipper.

While I pulled at the tangled threads of my mystery, the
conversation skipped on from subject to subject, until Van
Leer the elder laid strong hold of it, and with one vigorous
haul~brought it clear over from a criticism on “ Modern
Painters,” to the consideration of shark-fishing.

“Mrs. Van Leer, is that true?” asked Somerville. “Your
husband says that you circumvented a couple of sharks yes-
terday ; hooked them handsomely, and ruined their prospects
for man-eating.”

“ Cousin Jule has always been famous for catching sharks,”
observed Genevieve quickly.

The remark in itself seemed to be an innocent one enough,
but the manner of its utterance was so cynical, biting, and
almost vicious, that I glanced around the company to see who
had felt the teeth. Somerville was as unclouded and be-
nignant as June sunshine, not even turning his eye on the
pungent beauty. The married Van Leer was also perfectly
unmoved, but then it was possible that no satire could pierce
his dense blubber of stupidity, any more than the fangs of a
rattlesnake can penetrate that other gross animal who is such
a horror to Jews and such a comfort to Irishmen. The only
startled persons were Miss Westervelt, who looked alarmed,
and Mrs. Van Leer, who looked angry. Really, Miss Gen-
evieve, thought I, you are a little too sharp; you have no
business to go blabbing family misfortunes in that way; you
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 25

would not make a nice wife, nor even a eran sister-in-
law.

“I tell you it’s grand sport, shark-fishing is,” Suaeeed
Robert Van Leer, the second of the brothers. “Look here
now, Genevieve, you ought to try it. You see, you don’t
pull him in yourself; you lay out your line, and, when the
feller bites, we haul him in for you; and you look on and
swing your bonnet. The last feller. that. Sis caught was a
strapper, and gave us the heaviest kind of a long pull and a
pull altogether,—didn’t he, Henry? Look here now, Mary
and Jenny, you go out with us next. time, and have some
sport, won’t you?

“ Are they land-sharks?” asked Genkviene with a signi-
ficant crisp of her lips.

“No, no,” explained the je alesane youth, without iff the
least understanding her meaning. “They’re a small kind;
not man-eaters, you know; not. in the least dangerous except
to your clothes; you'll have to wear some old clothes, for
you'll get all slime. Come, Mary, I say you try it this after-
noon, or to-morrow.”

“ By land-sharks,” said I, drawing-a bow at a venture, “I
suppose Miss Genevieve means mermen; fellows of an am-
phibious, doubtful, brutal nature, who creep unsuspected into
human society and fill it with troubles.”

“Exactly,” replied Genevieve; “all such outlandish crea-
tures as gamblers, rakes, roués, and hateful people generally.”
+ There was a smile on the faces of Somerville, and the
skipping-jack ; but the eldest. Van Leer showed no signs. of
remorse, nor even conviction. 7 a

“That is a clever fancy,” observed Somerville,—“ that
wicked people are not of human race, but steal in among us
from some outcast species, commit their evil deeds, and then,
perhaps, return for safety to their own place.”

“Tt makes one think of the story of Branca Doria, in
Dante’s Inferno,” said Miss Westervelt.

“Story of who? I say, what’s the joke?” inquired Rob-

2
26 SEACLIFF.

ert, vaguely guessing that somebody had caught an idea
which he had missed. “Come, Mary, let’s hear it.”

“Mr. Fitz Hugh knows all about it,” replied Mary, un-
willing to put herself on exhibition as a connoisseur of Dan-
tesque literature.

“Branca Doria belonged to the upper ten in Genoa, about
six hundred years ago,” said I, as Robert’s slow eyes turned
inquiringly upon me. “He died one day, very unexpectedly,
and in the strictest privacy. As no one was by at the time,
a certain devil, name unknown, took the opportunity to enter
the body, deceive the relatives, and get himself into good
society. Of course he became a politician, held office,
brought on a crisis, and disgraced the respectable name of
Doria in various ways. Those, Mr. Van Leer, are the facts
of the case, I believe, although the devil always denied
them.”

“Did be? Confounded old liar!” observed Robert, with
a horselaugh either for my wit or his own. “Well, where is
this story? Not in the Bible, is it? Sounds something like
the Bible.”

“Dear me! Oh, Robert, you are too comical,” laughed
Genevieve. “You mustn’t suppose that all the devils are in
the Bible. Some of them are too modern to be mentioned
there.”

For the first time Somerville glanced a reply to one of the
hits of this captious little lady. A comical look, a sort of
jesting grimace it was, which said much to her doubtless, but
provokingly little to me, the uninitiated, who stood only at
the door of some grotesque mystery, and vainly tried to re-
cognize human figures traversing the darkness within. On
the whole, however, I felt pretty sure that all these sarcastic
flings referred to the domestic tyranny of Mr. Van Leer;
and I naturally decided that Genevieve was extremely una-
miable in harping so constantly and sharply on a subject of
such a delicately private nature. Still, this piquancy gave
her a decided appearance of character, and made her conver-
THE PEOPLE OF SEACLIFF. 27

sation amusing. A mere acquaintance, a simple caller on the
family, like myself, must necessarily forgive it, and indeed be
thankful for such a frank and interesting originality, remem-
bering that very few young ladies lave the courage to risk
their matrimonial prospects for the sake of expressing their
feelings. Independent as the girl was, however, she colored
under Somerville’s glance of humorous comprehension, and,
twisting away from him, began a conversation with me. She
was wonderfully clever for her age, and amused me for fifteen
minutes with odd remarks upon Europe. She thought that
the French could never be a truly great people until they
stopped lying; it was very much against them, too, that they
had so little real respect for women; no nation could be very
virtuous or noble, in which women were not listened to;
women had more heart'than men, and were therefore more
refined, more moral; nearly all moral truths were reached
through the heart and not through the head; such were the
philosophies of precocious Miss Genevieve.

Presently the Van Leers and Somerville went off on a
walk along the sea-shore, in order, as Robert expressed it, to
start up an appetite for prog; the mention of dinner re-
minding me that I had made a long call, I rose to depart.
Miss Westervelt asked me to stay and dine, in family style ;
but I had a previous engagement which obliged me to de-
cline. S

“Come back in the afternoon, then,” said she. “There
will be something going on. We shall either ride or fish.
You can walk over, if you like,—I know that you are a
wonderful walker,—and we will send you back on wheels.”

I thanked her, and accepted the invitation, so far at least
as regarded the evening. As for dinner, and the immediate
post-prandial hours, I had agreed to pass all that time with
an old acquaintance whose paternal mansion was one of the
chiefest architectural glories of the village where I was now
stopping. Does the public incline its million ears to catch
the name of that village? Really it pains me to keep my
28 SEACLIFF.

many-headed friend and patron in ignorance, but I have
been counselled not to mention the geographical. title of the
respectable place in question. Villages are so sensitive, you
know, and so very terrible in their vengeances! For conven-
ience’ sake, however, I must call it something; and so, hop-
ing no offence, I shall make bold to designate it as Rockford.

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III.

THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF.

meet the pretty Misses Westervelt again, still more
‘anxious, perhaps, to get a satisfactory glimpse of the
mystery which haunted their family, I made my. second entry
into the house of Seacliff. Mrs. Westervelt was in the par-
lor to receive me, but seeming so worn and depressed that I
readily credited her morning excuse of illness. She had
changed considerably, and for the worse, since I left her on
the brow of the Righi: her complexion had lost colour, her
cheeks had sunk a little, her mild hazel eyes had faded; and
her whole look had a weary, discouraged expression, which
told of either invalidism or sorrow. She still retained, how-
ever, that insipid grace, that soft, soulless charm of manner,
which made her so fascinating to some people.

“T am glad you came again,” said she. “I thank you for
this second call, really,—for I was very sorry not to see you
this morning,—disappointed, really. You know, of course,
how pleasant it is to meet old travelling companions; they
bring up so many recollections, and they seem such intimate
friends! But it can’t be as great a treat to you as it is to us.
You are on the move and amused all the while; and we are
so quiet and lonesome in our little country place. Ah! you
remember how fond I used to be of balls, and operas, and
those things. Well, you will hardly believe it, but, I have

al: eight o’clock of that clear June evening, anxious to
30 SEACLIFF.

*

got over all that, at least very nearly. I feel a little forsaken
now and then at Seacliff, but still I have no desire to go into
city life again. Matinées, and parties, and rounds of visits,—
I am quite tired of all that, I assure you. What you saw in
me abroad was the: last flicker of the candle. Iam as do-
mestic now as my husband, if not more so. Oh, it will be a
long time before you can come to this state of feeling, unless
you should have bad health or meet with some great trouble.
Trouble saddens one for a long while. I never have been
quite the same person that I was before the death of my poor
uacle who adopted me. Oh, you need not try to tell me ;—I
know all about it by experience ;—if people are gay once,
they are gay for ‘a good while; but they can be sobered by
sickness and misfortune. I wouldn’t have thought once that
I could be as much like a nun asI am now. You wouldn’t
have thought it, either, if you could have seen how fond of
society I was ten years ago. Oh, it seemed to me like being
asked to Paradise when I had an invitation to a ball. But
that was foolish, of course ; and I suppose that I am fortunate
in having outlived such ideas.”

Such was the style of Mrs. Westervelt’s observations. It
will be seen, I suppose, that she was a woman of barely
average originality and conversational powers. Ten years
‘previous to this time, when her name was famous in the
Saratoga letters of Jenkins as Miss Van L——, she had
reigned in the second circle of New York society as a belle,
by mere dint of beauty, of taste in dress, of grace in dancing,
and of proficiency in etiquette. Now, through her marriage
with Mr. Westervelt, she moved in the first circle, but not as
a queen, because beauty, that mightiest wand of womanly en-
chantment, had disappeared from among her treasures. Her
face and form were still regular and agreeable, but the most
flattering of mirrors could say no more; for leanness, that
gaunt enemy of American bellehood, had robbed her of half
her outlines at the early age of thirty-three. But she was
a harmless, genteel, sweet-voiced lady, an acquaintance to
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 31

whom you accorded an average amount of respect, an ami-
able friend, an affectionate wife, and a kind mother-in-law, I
am certain, notwithstanding the hints of the embittered Gen-
evieve. Let us do her some little honor, for her heart was
stronger than her head, and that is not, an unworthy thing
in woman. . pte

After a few minutes of dialogue, she quitted me to receive
some people who halipalled over, in their own carriage, from
Rockford. I now slipped out of the parlor under the guid-
ance of Mrs. Van Leer, who led me into the library, where
the rest of the family were arranging’ the. programme and
preparing the éostumes of a series of tableaux vivants.

“Come along; we shall press you into the service; we
shall make you good for something; we are going to have
Rebecca ang Rowena, the execution of Anne Boleyn, and a
lot of other awful scenes,” she pratiled. “Mr. Somerville,
just look at this gentleman and see what he will answer for.
Won't he go in the execution ? ”

“ Oh; exactly ; just the person we want,” said Somerville.
“Six #Heet high; dark and determined; broad-shouldered
enough for a battle-axe; give an awful fierceness to the
tragedy ; make a really tremendous spectator. He shall
have the second biggest hatchet, and stand by the scaffold as
a bloodthirsty lord, one of the remorseless enemies of the
queen. Mr. Fitz Hugh, have the kindness to blow up all
the ferocity there is in your nature, and let it blaze in your
countenance. Mrs. Van Leer will deepen the gloom of your
eyebrows with a piece of burnt cork. By the way, couldn’t
we have another tableau, representing a devil trying to
carry off a soul, and an angel driving him out of the death-
chamber? Miss Westervelt is just blonde enough for an
angel; her sister would be a beautiful corpse, and Mr. Fitz
Hugh will play the devil; he is tall enough to make a very
majestic one.”

“ Agreed! agreed!” exclaimed Mrs. Van Leer. “Mr.
Fitz Hugh, please to feel fiendish imme—diately, for we will
32 SEACLIFF.

have that scene first. Now, who is to be executioner in
Anne Boleyn?”

“ Some herculean person, of course,” replied Somerville.
“TJ think Robert is as near the true build as we can furnish ;
besides, he has a tremendous biceps muscle,—for we must
have his arms bare. As forthe ponderous king, your hus-
band will do, with some flour on his head and a pillow under
his waistcoat. We must ignore the ab@trd fact that the king
was absent.”

“ Good!” said the lively lady. “ King Harry, too! Why,
Henry, my dear, you were born for this very occasion. But
then,—as to specta—tors,—as to somebody to witness our
success,—there’s the rub! We shall have to call up the
ser—vants, and send for Mr. and Mrs. Treat, who won’t
come, of course, because its theat—rical. Oh! ‘by the way,
the Capers of Rockford are in the other room. Ill go
and engage them to stay. We must have specta—tors, or
there’s no use in acting. What a stu—pid place the country
is, to be sure, where people are so apt to live a great ways
from each other !”

“Do exert your fascinations, Mrs. Van Leer,” implored
Somerville. “Engage the Capers, and then come back to us,
for we can’t get along a moment without you.”

Presently she returned, exclaiming, “Capers will stay.
Capers has agreed to witness our spectacle. Eter—nal thanks
to Capers! We must never cut Capers.”

Without Somerville, our wardrobe would have been a fail-
ure. Theatrical habiliments there were none in the house
except a single costume of the times of Louis XIV., which
Mrs. Westervelt had once worn to a fancy ball. For the rest
of our materials we had to depend on a transfiguration. of old
clothes. A lady’s velvet cloak of obsolete fashion became a
royal mantle ; a brilliant smoking-cap served for an earl’s
bonnet ; costumic anachronisms were disregarded ; necessity
was the mother of invention; and the result was splendidly
illusive. We seized upon the back parlor, closed the sliding
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 33

doors, and arranged with a most jovial and human gabble the
demoniac horror of the first tableau. Genevieve Wester-
velt, covered with a black cloak for a pall, was stretched upon
three consecutive ottomans, her beautiful face bare and still,
her long eyelashes depressed upon her cheeks, deathlike with
flour, her flaxen hair drawn smoothly across her temples,
and her hands folded on her breast. An infinity of sable
cambric swathed my stature, and drooped from my arms in
the form of most clumsy pinions, changing me into the simili-
tude of a fiend, black and ill-shapen enough to be very wicked
indeed. Behind a window-curtain hid Miss Westervelt as
guardian angel, in a morning dress of white muslin, with au-
burn hair lying over her shoulders, and wings fabricated of
bridal veils. All things had been arranged by Somerville, at
the same time that he seemed to listen with the utmost defer-
ence and delight to the dictation of every eager co-laborer.
He heard each one attentively ; he smiled and said it was a
capital idea; then, he suggested his own plan, merely as a
sequel -of yours; finally he put his plan into practice and
complimented you on the success of it. Each one of us was
persuaded to take immense credit to himself or herself for the
perfection of the result. I never saw such another insinuat-
ing fellow as Somerville, nor one who was so strong in the
weakness of his fellow-creatures.

The drama was ready to open, and the lights were extin-
guished. Mrs. Van Leer, her husband, and his brother,
hurried through the hall into the front parlor, to become
spectators, while Somerville and Hunter withdrew the slid-
ing doors simultaneously, exposing a sombre death-chamber
seen dream-like through the illusive gauze of a mosquito-
net.

If ever there was a moment of unmitigated terror and tre-
mendous extremity on this earth, it was when I glided forward
in my tartarean drapery to the side of Genevieve, and waved
my ebon pinions, or rather fins, above her in significance of
monstrous, fiendish, and eternal triumph. Second by second
34 SEACLIFF.

the horror deepened, and the cambric flapped a clearer affir-
mation of the diabolical, the everlasting catastrophe. At last,
when human hope had fled the scene, when despair was at its
awfullest culmination, when the spectators in the front parlor
were shuddering with helpless sympathy, forth rustled the
guardian angel from the window-curtains, and flitted straight
at the exultant devil. ‘Now ensued a noiseless but terrible
contest between the powers of light and the powers of dark-
ness. Four wings going at once; bridal veils against cotton
cambric; virtue supernal against vice infernal; devil the
biggest, but angel a hundred times the handsomest ; black
waving the highest, but white the quickest and most grace-
fully; battle tough and tight, but Beelzebub slowly losing
ground, according to agreement. About thirty swings of the
bridal veils fairly took the conceit out of Satan, and he began
to cower. Downward he sloped, lower and lower, crouching,
sliding backwards, frightened, whipped, pursued by the con-
quering angel, not the ghost of a chance, giving it up, and
slipping blackly out of a side door with an air of discomfiture
approaching to extermination. Then back to the bier glided
the heavenly spirit, and raised over it her gauzy wings
in expression of a holy, salvatory, eternal benigon. The
drama was finished; the spectators clapped their hands
over the triumph of the good cause; the sliding doors met
each other half-way, advancing stickily on unmellifluous
castors.

“First rate! Splendid! I tell you, Mary did look like
an angel. Oh, Fitz Hugh! you was awful,” shouted Robert
Van Leer, roaring through the hall and exploding among us
with the enthusiasm of a bombshell. :

“ I begin to believe that the devil is fully as dark as he is
painted,” said Somerville, smiling upon me so graciously that
I felt flattered, and thought that I must have played my part
exceedingly well. “If you had been the very imp that Lu-
ther threw his inkstand at, you could not have looked
blacker.”
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 35

“ Beautiful! Charming! Did you ever!” exclaimed the
Capers. in a chorus of admiration.

“His riverence got the worst of it,’ giggled one of the
Irish servant girls, who had taken me to represent a priest,
and thus had totally lost the moral of the tableau.

As I had nothing to do with the affairs between Rebecca
and Rowena, I walked into the parlor, and was introduced to
the Capers. The family consisted of papa, maiden sister,
young lady daughter, and boy of fourteen. Mr. Capers was a
tall, thin, pale, mild man, high in the shoulders, loose in his
coat and pantaloons, tight and white about the neck, with
light, tearful eyes, a Roman nose set slightly to one side, and
a chin like the after peak of a saddle. Miss Capers, the
elder, was a half-century plant, of much the same pattern
with her brother, but frost-bitten and tartish in aspect. The
daughter was eighteen years old, aquiline in feature, with
black eyes, and the general freshness of a healthy village
belle; the son, a stout boy, good-looking enough, but grimy
under the finger-nails, ill at ease in his best clothes, and
speechless with bashfulness. Mr. Hunter, who, like myself,
had no part in the next scene, had already got the daughter's
arm in his own, and was drifting away with her into the
verandah, under pretext of extraordinary moonlight effects on
Long Island. Falling in between the father and maiden
sister, I talked of tableaux vivants, as that seemed to be their
choice of subjects. The lady was theologically minded,
asserted her belief in the existence of the devil, dwelt
upon the awful lesson which had been taught by the tableau,
and asked me whether I had Jately suffered any bereave-
ments in my family. I was obliged to confess, however un-
willingly, that for some years past the Fitz Hughs had not
been visited by the black horses,-whereupon her interest
in me evidently diminished, and she swept over to the sofa,
where Mrs. Westervelt was painfully extracting a few sylla-
bles, like grinders, from writhing Master Capers. Her
brother, however, clung to me, and demanded sympathy with
mournful eye and speech.
36 SEACLIFF.

“ Ah, sir!” he whispered, shaking his head and sighing ;
“that little drama touched a tender spot in our hearts.”

I started, and felt really pained that we had exhibited such
a tableau; for I now observed, for the first time, that the
whole family was in mourning.

“ Yes, sir, I lost my wife five weeks ago,” he continued
with a simple, earnest look, that was really curious, although
it made a strong appeal to my compassion.

“T am grieved to hear it, and offer you my condolence,” I
replied. “I sincerely regret it, if our tableau has pained
you.”

“Oh, not at all!” said he. Don’t think so. On the con-
trary, it gave me a melancholy pleasure; everything gives
me pleasure that reminds.me of her. She was a very hand-
some woman,” he added, after a pause. “ You would hardly
believe it, sir, but she was as young looking as her daughter,
—and much handsomer. Strangers often mistook them for
sisters, sir. A very tasty woman in dress, too, sir. Her
death was an awful blow to me, and to us all, and to Rock-
ford, also, I am sure. Our minister, the Reverend Mr. Ja-
cobs, told me so. I had her buried in a style worthy of her,
sir. I thought I knew how she would like to be, sir, and I
went and did it.”

“A very graceful tribute of affection,’ I suggested, con-
siderably puzzled by this eccentric though unquestionably
sincere mourner.,

“Yes, sir, I think it was rather graceful,” he assented,
sadly but gratified. “I went down to New York and got the
most beautiful rosewood coffin that I could find. Then I had
it lined with quilted white satin. As for a shroud, sir, I
wouldn’t suffer her to be put in an ordinary shroud, but I got
a white satin dress made for her, very expensive and very
tasty, with real lace frills down the bosom and on the collar
and cuffs. Lastly, I put a bouquet of hothouse flowers in her
hand. Oh, sir! she looked very handsome. Why, sir, when
T led Lottie, my daughter, into the room, and showed her how
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 37

I had arranged everything, she broke right out, ‘Oh, pa,’
said she, ‘I do wish ma could see herself.’ That was just
what she said, sir, and it was pure nature.”

He had told his story, and was satisfied. I never saw the
man but twice after that evening, but I am confident that he
repeated that same narrative to hundreds of persons. A spell
seemed to be upon him, as upon the Ancient Mariner of Col-
eridge, compelling him to find a listener and to rehearse to him
his quaint tale of bereavement and of consolation.

While I hesitated on the brink of his melancholy, doubting
whether to disturb the stream or to let it roll on voicelessly,
a note of preparation ran through the house, and all rushed
into the front parlor, to behold the next tableau. The sliding
doors jolted backward, and through the mosquito-net we saw
Jewish Rebecca kneeling to Saxon Rowena. Genevieve
Westervelt’s flaxen hair, large blue-gray eyes, delicate
blonde features, patrician expression, and white shoulders,
did full justice to the daughter of Cedric, while Mrs. Van
Leer looked handsomer as Rebecca than she had ever looked,
I imagine, in her proper personality... Abundant were the
jewels; artistic, rich, and deceiving the foldings of the dra-
peries; the front lights so well thrown as to make the very
shadows ornamental. It was a still picture, unstirred by ges-
ture, and quite eloquent in its silence.

“Oh! I do think that is so lovely !” whispered Miss Lottie
Capers, with an enthusiasm which almost made her forget to
address herself to Mr. Hunter. “The other was horrid; but
this is perfectly ro—mantic.”

Mr. Hunter lost not a moment in adding his mite to the
impression of the scene, by declaiming the entire passage
from Ivanhoe, with as much fluency and exactness as if he
had studied it for the occasion. The sliding doors met again,
and Miss Lottie admiringly murmured, “ What a wonderful
memory you must have, Mr. Hunter !”

The artful youth immediately repeated along passage from
Alexander Smith, concerning stars, and, under cover of it
38 SEACLIFF.

inveigled Miss Capers into the presence of the heavenly host
as seen from the verandah.

After one more tableau, the execution of Anne Boleyn,
which I shall allow the reader to make just as beautiful or
just as hideous as he chooses, we closed our play, and the
evening’s pomp was put away like old furniture in the gar-
rets of memory. In a few minutes more the Capers took
their departure, thanking us so earnestly for our entertain-
ment, that we all felt flattered and asserted our vehement de-
sire to continue the acquaintance. Hunter was especially
emphatic in his professions ; favored them with the death of
Hugo and Parisina as he accompanied them to their carriage ;
obtained a particular invitation to call, from Miss Lottie, and
joked a good deal about her during the rest of the evening.
As for me, I thought of the rich auburn streams of Miss
Westervelt’s hair, and concluded that the neighborhood of
Seacliff would be a delightful summer residence,—for to most
men, at all events to men who have no sisters, few sights are
more persuasive, more circean, than that of a woman’s hair
gracefully dishevelled. I must see her thus again, I said to
myself; and for that I will stay a week, perhaps a month.
It was because our tableaux gave rise to this resolution that
they form an important event in my life, and are worthy of
being recorded in the present volume. But for them and the
consequent shower of gold which fell down Miss Westervelt’s
shoulders, I should next day have gone to New Haven, and
next day to Boston, and next day, perhaps, to Nahant or
Newport, and so never become identified with the fortunes of
Seacliff, nor had a chance to write its history.

But there was one other thing which contributed to make
the place interesting to me, and that was an absurd curiosity
to learn the meaning of the singular conversation which I
had partially overheard in the morning. Looking round for
Mrs. Van Leer, I observed that she had seated herself near
Somerville, and was coqueiting to keep his attention. Aha!
I begin to understand, thought I: flirting in a wife begets
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 39

jealousy in a husband ; jealousy is the natural or unnatural
parent of matrimonial quarrels; matrimonial quarrels are
sometimes carried on too loudly in back boudoirs ; the conse-
quence is that chance visitors overhear family secrets. I
looked at Mr. Henry Van Leer, to see him chafe under the
affront ; but if he had passed the last twenty years in sleep-
ing with his fathers, he could not have been more drowsily
indifferent to what was passing. ‘Perhaps I am on the
wrong trace, I said to myself; or else the man is a better
dissembler than I should imagine. In the mean time, Mrs.
Westervelt and Genevieve were whispering confidences in
the veranda, and Mr. Hunter was troubling the spirit of
the piano with some halt and lame reminiscences of Linda
di Chamouni. Miss Westervelt had ruthlessly retired to
put up her hair, and I waited impatiently for her reap-
pearance, for I was anxious to receive an invitation to
remain a while in the vicinity of Seacliff, and for certain
instinctive, emotional reasons, which any one can understand
easier than I can explain, I preferred that the encouragement
should come from her rather than another. She appeared,
but instead of approaching me, she took Hunter’s place from
him, and played Linda passionately, enchantingly. While I
was deliberating whether I should sulk or turn the leaves for
her, Genevieve entered, seated herself at the other end of my
sofa, and: started a conversation by asking, “Did you get
tired of Europe ? ”

“Not at all. The longer I stayed, the better I liked it.”

“I would have remained if I had been you. What made
you come home?”

“There were too many temptations to idleness and good-
for-nothingness; my Yankee conscience rose against them.”

“T suppose it is better to work hard in doing nothing than
not to work at all,” she said.

“Of course. It is more ridiculous, to be sure; but it is
more respectable, and it makes one happier.” /

“Tt is a consolation to hear you say so. J work hard from
40 SEACLIFF.

year’s end to year’s end, and the only result is that I am
dressed ; a very trifling result, you see, for I am not tall.”

“The world does not judge the result of labor by quantity,
but by quality,” I replied with a reverential glance at her
tasteful attire.

“ Oh, there I think that you are mistaken,” said she, with-
out seeming to notice my compliment. “In this country, at
least, people are more astonished to see a man do a great
deal, than to see him do anything well.”

“Perhaps so; at any rate, I am afraid so; although the
charge is a sharp satire. Still, such a feeling cannot last; it
will give way as we become more esthetic; no refined and
tasteful people judges in that style. Just notice what deci-
sion the great world of intelligent humanity pronounces in
matters of art, for instance. Suppose two artists, one of
whom produces in two years four or five statues of mediocre
merit, while the other in the same time produces only one
statue, but that one an Apollo Belvidere. The world will
gradually forget the first artist, and put the second among the
demigods. It recognizes that the latter has not only done
better work, but more of it. He has cut less stone, but,
artistically speaking, he has performed more labor. Just
imagine how many expressions he has conceived and re-
jected; how many lines he has drawn in his mind, or in the
clay, and obliterated ; how many incomplete ideals .he has at
last married and moulded into one ideal perfection. The
world feels, all this, although it may not reason it out, and
arrives by instinct at the true conclusion.”

“T think you are right,” said she. “It ought to be so, and
I suppose that in the long run it is so. However, all these
subjects are out of the circle of us women, and I wonder that
you should take the trouble to talk to me about them. We
women are allowed so few ambitions, so few emotions, so few
efforts! Why, I scarcely know what you mean by tempta-
tions. Our only temptations are to dress, flirting, idleness,
and crossness.”
THE GAYETIES OF SEACLIFF. 41

“Tt is not the great temptations that ruin us; it is the little
ones,” said I, oracularly.

“T don’t believe that,” she objected, shaking her head.
“What do you mean by it?”

“Why, it is very clear. If the devil never asked us to do
anything less than steal a horse, for instance, he would hardly
catch a soul. We should get frightened at his first demand;
and quit him forever.”

“Exactly,” she replied, nodding and laughing. “He is
wonderfully cautious and cunning; before he asks you to
steal a horse, he gets you to steal a pony.”

How clever the creature had grown since I parted with
her a year before! She was no longer a girl of sixteen; she
had suddenly become a woman of seventeen.

“But what are you going to do in America, Mr. Fitz
Hugh?” she resumed. “ What great labors are you going
to perform, to make amends for your European idleness ?”

Now I really intended to become an author, having already
got a book of travels on the launching-ways of a New York
publisher, and having projected at least half a dozen other
works in history, biography, and romance, with which I
meant to storm the world’s attention. But I naturally ob-
jected to making an ostentation of these facts——and so I
replied simply that I was engaged. in a course of private
study.

“ Are you going to study in the city?” she asked. “ Will
the Astor Library be necessary ?”

“ T ta prefer the country, if Seacliff is a . fair specimen
of it.

“Why not come to Seacliff, then?” interposed Mrs. Wes-
tervelt. “There is a boarding-place close by, just under the
hill. Our neighbors are plain people, but they would make
you very comfortable. We have had friends there before.
Why not take rooms with them ?”

“Yes, why not, Mr. Fitz Hugh?” said Miss Westervelt,
turning upon me from the piano.
42 SEACLIFF.

“To be sure! It would be an act of the purest charity to
us,” added Mrs. Van Leer, with a sudden sparkle of interest
in her coquettish eyes.

Immensely flattered and gratified, I accepted the proposi-
tion, although not entirely persuaded that the neighborhood
of Seacliff would be the most favorable of places for literary
application. It was late now, and I took my departure, with
the understanding that I should find my rooms engaged for
me when I came over next morning. Mr. Hunter was
obliging enough to drive me to Rockford in Van Leer’s sulky,
and to drink three glasses of sherry, and smoke a couple .of
cigars with his heels on my-table. Such stories as the adol-
escent told me under the inspiration of these modest stimu-
lants! Although doubt seemed almost wicked as I looked at
his persuaded face, still it was hard to believe that so young
a man could have seen so much life, been the hero of so
many adventures, and sacked the hearts of so many peerless
ladies. I felt obliged to respect either his precocious experi-
ence or his imagination. The pace at which he drove away
was a furious one, and I went to my room hoping that his
neck was stronger than his head.

Some other questions gave me much more concern. Why
was it that the Seacliff family had set its youngest daughter
to invite me there, and not the eldest? Was it because Miss
Westervelt was engaged, or on the look-out for a richer or
more attractive match than Mr. Fitz Hugh? Finally, the
man who had no pity, and the woman who was in such immi-
nent danger of exposure, were they Mr. and Mrs. Van Leer,
or, if not, who were they ?
 

 

 

 

.CHAPTER IV.

DOMICILIATION.

on a certain bright June morning of eighteen hun-
"AS dred and fifty something, he might have seen a
spruce young man getting into a shabby old barouche. He
was tall and strong in build, with black eyes, long and thick
black hair, aquiline nose, a forehead which seemed to retreat
above because it was so heavy below, a darkly pale com-
plexion and a moustache as ample and sombre as that of the
immemorial opera brigand. He wore a sober morning dress
of the English fashion, and one of those broad-brimmed soft
hats which the advent of Kossuth had lately made permissi-
ble. Giving the porter thirty cents, which was a compromise
between his natural extravagance as an American and the
economy which he had learned abroad, he leaned back in the
barouche, lit a cigar, and told the negto coachman to drive to
the brown house just below the Westervelt place. If the
reader had asked me who the young man was, I should have
replied (remembering the title-page of Pendennis), that he
was my lifelong enemy, Mr. Louis Fitz Hugh.

A drive of less than three miles took me to my new domi-
cile. It was a dingy, small-windowed, huge-chimneyed, little
old house, with a short roof before and a long one behind,
reminding me vaguely of a chubby dog sitting on his
haunches. Thirty yards from the front of it rippled the

AS «= the reader been in front of the Rockford Hotel
44 SEACLIFF.

Sound, and two hundred yards to the eastward rose the low
bluff of Seacliff. In the doorway appeared the landlady, a
tidy housewife of about fifty, thin, angular and stiffish, but
with an eager, fluttered, kindly look which I felt to be a sure
prognosticator of respectful treatment, soft bed and good din-
ners. Seeing that she advanced to meet me, I jumped out
hastily, and bowed to her with a more than ordinarily civil
“ Good morning.”

“TI do believe that is Louis Fitz Hugh,” she replied, run-
ning forward with sudden animation. “I do wonder if it
aint. Now aint you the son of Mr. Charles Fitz Hugh of
New York, perhaps ?”

“Not a doubt of it, ma’am,” said I. “ Why—Mrs. Treat!
why, is it possible? Is this my old Ma Treat?—my old
nurse ?” .

“T guess it is, Louis,—I guess it is, if you ever had a Ma
Treat. Why Louis, how you have grown!” she: continued,
catching both my hands and looking up at my summits.
“Oh, but you always was one of the tall sort. I almost knew
you couldn’t stop short of six feet in your stockings’ feet.
Well, you’ve come back like bread upon the waters, which is
found after many days,—Ecclesiastes, eleventh, first. Now
Mr. Treat will be disappointed. Now he will feel bad to
think he didn’t stay to see you. I said it was you, as soon
as ever Mr. Van Leer came down to engage rooms for you
and spoke your name. Mr. Treat said it couldn’t be, be-
cause you was in foreign parts, and so he finally went off to
the man-that-makes-the-sailboats’-house, to get his sharpee
tinkered. But now he will feel sorry. Mr. Weston, (to the
negro,) you jest carry up the gentleman’s baggage into the
front chamber—you know where—same room where Miss-
Phillips-of-Rochester’s daughter stayed. Lewy, we’ve done
jest the best we could by you, thinking all the time perhaps
’twas you: Now do come in and set down and rest your legs,
while Mr. Weston carries up the baggage.”

Slipping the covenanted pieces of silver into the negro’s
DOMICILIATION. 45

hand, I followed Ma Treat into her prim, puritanical little
front parlor; that sacred retreat which no dust or cobwebs
ever deformed, whence flies were daily banished, and
whither the feet of common mortality rarely attained ; that
abode of curtained obscurity where the family Bible loomed
largely on the cherry table, and the hereditary brass candle-
sticks stood sentinel on the mantel. In this sanctuary we
sat and talked of my early history, while my numerous
pieces of baggage trooped gradually up stairs on the shoul-
ders of limping Mr. Weston. Our lengthy and rambling
reminiscences amounted to the following commonplace nar-
rative.

_ My mother falling seriously ill when I was three weeks
old, I was put out to nurse with a plain country couple
named Treat, who had just lost an infant of their own.
They took kindly care of me for two years, and nourished
me into a vigorous small-boyhood. My mother has often
related to me with a vanity for which I must of course par-
don her, how piteously my nurse cried when she was called
on to let me go out of the arms of that affection which had
become.a second nature. It seems to me that I can remem-
ber the woful scene, but as I have an equally distinct recol-
lection of two or three incidents which happened before I
was born, I sometimes doubt whether, the picture of a weep-
ing woman holding a petticoated urchin, which exists in my
imagination, was not painted there altogether from hearsay.
Perhaps it was in some such spiritual manner that Joyce
Heth and all those other colored centenarians, of whom we read
in the papers, dandled the infancy of Washington. Well,
for years after quitting my foster-parents, I used to pay them
annual visits, generally timed to some great change in my
life, as, for instance, the occasion of getting my first pockets,
my first breeches, my first pair of boots. Pa Treat and Ma
Treat I styled them, in distinction from my parents, whom I
dignified with the more awful titles of Father and Mother.
They always had a cake of maple sugar for me, or a card of
46 SEACLIFF.

gingerbread, or a cutter whittled out by Pa Treat’s own jack-
knife, or a pair of lambs’-wool stockings from Ma Treat’s
own needles, as well as long stories about my wonderful
babyhood, when I bumped my remarkable nose, or cut my
extraordinary teeth. After I got old enough to be sent to
boarding-school, I began to lose sight of Pa and Ma Treat.
Maturer studies, Europe, the pleasures and interests of
opening manhood, broadened the distance between us, until
now, on my visit to Seacliff, it was years since J had seen
them or scarcely thought of them. To my shame be it
spoken, they had been the first to start up in recognition at
the sound of the old familiar name; and now Ma Treat led
me about the house with as much delight as if I were still
the same innocent two-year-old who had toddled away from
her in the lang-syne. She made fifty apologies for a neat
front chamber and convenient closet bedroom which drew
forth my warmest praises. She absolutely wanted to board
me for nothing, and accepted my own price with great reluc-
tance and mortification. After five minutes of shyness, she
fell back into the old nursery deportment, called me Lewy, as
she had done twenty-two years before, wanted to get me
some milk toast as if I still had my first set of teeth, and
would have held me in lap if I had shown the least desire for
that infantile privilege.

“Well, Lewy, I s’pose I must clear out and give you a
chance to put yourself to rights,” she said at last. “There’s
water, and there’s soap, and there’s towels. If you want
anything, you holler, and I'll fly right up.”

She went out, and I unpacked my trunk. That done, I
consulted my watch to see if it was late enough for a call on
the Westervelts ; but as it still lacked a few minutes of ten,
I did not dare to trouble the ladies, and amused myself
with taking a view of Seacliff and its surroundings. The
green bluff, on which stood the Yankee Parthenon, closed
abruptly to the south in a low precipice of awkward, ugly
granite, prevalent along this shore, worn and torn at the bot-
DOMICILIATION. 47

tom by waves, and stained adown its rough face with the
drizzle of earth and decayed grasses. It was no great affair
of a cliff, but there was enough of it perhaps to justify a-
name for a country-house. Outward from it spread the
changeable green of the Sound, terminated southward by the
yellow sand-banks of Long-Island and westward by the ver-
dant treadings of the Connecticut shore, but stretching east-
ward into a watery horizon which recalled the unconfined
sublimities of mid ocean. Other bluffs were sown at wide
intervals along the coast; and behind lay the low, desultory
hillocks of New England. On the east, a quarter of a mile
off, a marshy rivulet strolled indolently into the Seund, form-
ing a small haven where nestled a sloop yacht, a trivial
fishing-smack or two, and three or four of those fast, light
flat-bottomed sailboats known as sharpees. There were
trees, grass, cattle, houses, and church spires in the landscape,
and white sails in the sea view.

As I made these observations from a dwarfish knoll some
thirty yards to the left of my new residence, I heard the
voice of Ma Treat behind me, calling in impassioned tones,
“Here he is, husband! Here’s Lewy Fitz Hugh, as sure
as you're alive. Here’s Pa Treat a-coming, Lewy! and
glad enough to see you.”

I turned, and beheld a short, broad, stocky man of fifty-
five trudging hastily along the beach, closely followed by'a
duck-legged urchin of six or seven, at full waddle. Pa Treat
stumped up to me with a smile of mingled incredulity and
delight on his weather-beaten face, and, without saying a
word at first, shook hands for a period which, owing to his
tremendous gripe, seemed nearly equal to our separation.
Meantime Ma Treat, dragging duck-legs for ard by the
arm, looked on with tears in her eyes and talkedgfor the four
of us.

“ Ain’t he a tall one!” said Pa Treat, at la “ Who'd
a thought it! Why, Lewy,—Mr. Fitz Hugh, £ mean,—
come in and set down. Dreadful sorry now I didn’t, stay
48 SEACLIFF.

and help get up your thingumbobs. Had to hurry off,
though, hot-foot, down to the what-dye-callums.”

Pa Treat was a silent man of old, as my mother had often
informed me; and years, it appeardd, had. not added much
to his capacities for. oratory. After the first outburst of ex-
citement, he subsided into a smiling taciturnity, only diver-
sified by an occasional friendly grunt of immense significance,
over and around which Ma Treat’s conversation babbled like
a brooklet among pebbles. Into the little prim parlor I went
again, and epitomized my life since we last parted. So
prodigious was their interest in the narrative, that I half felt
for the time as if no man before me had ever got an educa-
tion, or steamed across the Atlantic, or landed at Liverpool,
or made the grand tour of Europe.

“Well, that’s a great ways to travel,” observed Pa Treat,
taking a long breath as if he had just arrived, “ hot-foot,”
from performing the whole immense journey in person.
“ And here we’ve been doing nothing but sit round the same
old fireplace. Had troubles,.though, if we han’t travelled;
he added gravely. “John’s dead.”

“Yes, John’s dead,” said Ma Treat, shaking her head
and winking watery eyes. “The Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord; Job,
first, twenty-first. Sally died, you know, Lewy, when you
was at school; and two years ago last winter, John’s wife
died in childbed ; and then, the summer after, John he died
of a lung fever ; and now, Lewy, we’re all alone except little
Johnny here.”

She reached her hand behind her and gently drew forward
the urchin whom I have already noticed. He had been sit-
ting on alow wooden cricket in the rear of ‘her skirts, his
chubby £ fice) very solemn, and a trifle stupefied with awe, not
a leg, a myzor finger stirring, and his whole childish vivacity,
if he h by, quite extinguished for the time by bashfulness.

   
  
  

--He «wasija broad-bottomed, high-shouldered, thick-limbed,
younkem the exact reproduction on a small scale of his
DOMICILIATION. AQ

grandfather. At first sight he seemed a mere tadpole, whose
principal characteristics were a big belly and means of loco-
motion; though afterwards, when I came to know him better,
I discovered that he had a soul as well as another. A pain-
ful blush overspread his tanned features, extending from
forehead to throat, and very possibly down to his toes, as he
advanced in front of Ma Treat’s knee, and speechlessly made
his short-necked manners. I patted his spacious back en-
couragingly, and asserted my belief that he was a nice boy,
and a great comfort to his grandparents. :

“Oh Lewy! we should be awful loneSsme without him,”
said Ma Treat, much moved. “ We bless the Lord-that-is-
on-high’s great mercies for preserving him to us. He is, in-
deed, a monstrous comfort to us. That is, when he’s a good
boy,” she added in a solemn aside. “But sometimes his sin-
ful heart gets the upper hands; and then he’s a great grief
to his poor old granpa and granma. A foolish son is a grief
to his father ; Proverbs, seventeenth, twenty-fifth.”

Nothing could be more sepulchral than the tone with which
she thus alluded to the lad’s natural, and occasionally, it
seems, ungovernable wickedness of soul. Johnny’s small
flicker of self-righteousness went out under it, like a candle
in the breath of a mephitic cavern, and he drooped upon
his cricket again in a state of the gloomiest spiritual humili-
ation. It was evident that if his brief legs were not early
,trained to walk in the way they should go, it would not be
for lack of orthodox reproof’ and instruction on the part of
his grandmother. By way of changing a subject which
stung, so sharply through the rents in Johnny’s conscience,
I remarked that the old house still stood in spite of winter
winds.

“Yes; it’s used to ’em I reckon,” said Pa Treat. “It’s an
antic old house, and no mistake.”

“ Antic?” inquired I, with some amazement, at the same
time picturing to myself a venerable brown dwelling dancing
madly up and down the shore to the tune of some ocean

8
50 SEACLIFF.
®

hornpipe, or skurrying away over land to some witch revel
on the wings of a January gale.

“Yes; right down antic; my grandfather built it; much
as a hundred years old,” explained Pa Treat.

I saw that he meant antique. “And who built the house
on the hill?” Iasked. “Mr. Westervelt?”

“No; another New Yorker,—Mr. Nathan Skelton,—
awful great bank and railroad man,—regular stiffy. I tell
you, he cut a‘swath. But he busted.” .

“ Some eporulejor tickled him into swelling and then
cracked him open, YI suppose, as boys serve a bladder-fish.”

“No tellin’. Most all them New Yorkers do bust. I ex-
pect it’s their company ruins ’em.”

“Their company? Oh, you mean their visitors. So
Skelton had a great many visitors?”

« Acre lots full. Then such goings on! Such eating and
drinking! Such jigs and jigamarees! People driving up
night and day. But they dwindled down pay to pretty
much nothing but sheriffs.”

“And how do you like the Westervelts?” I inquired,
hoping, perhaps, that he would say something of the young
ladies or of the mystery.

“A good deal better. Ma Treat knows more about vam
than I do.”

“Well, Lewy,” said Ma Treat, thus appealed to, “they are
pretty nice folks, though ruther curious. Mr. Westervelt’s a
mild, meeching sort of a man, with no more harm in him
than a blind kitten. He makes me think of a Jame rooster,
keeping away by himself and not crowing any, for fear the
others will peck at him. Mrs. Westervelt is mighty genteel,
but a leetle too lofty to suit me. Pride’s a dreadful sin,
Lewy; and I, for one, can’t bear it. Pride ruined Satan,
and pride can ruin you and I. Pride goeth before destruc-
tion, and a haughty spirit before a fall; Proverbs, sixteenth,
eighteenth.’ Remember that, Johnny. Sometimes Johnny’s
proud, and then he’s a naughty boy. (This in the glum,
DOMICILIATION. 51

funereal aside which usually italicized her allusions to John-
ny’s moral baseness.) But the girls are real little darlings ;
and Miss Mary especially is the sweetest creetur that ever I
saw, or Pa Treat either. Some folks think she ain’t so hand-
some as her sister; but handsome, is, that handsome doos,
Lewy ; and that sets Miss Mary on high. That’s Mr.-Jacobs-
that-preaches-in-Rockford’s opinion, too, I reckon; and glad
enough he’d be to get her, I know; and a splendid minister’s
wife she’d make. Now Miss Genevieve ain’t a bad little
thing, neither, and beautiful she is, to be sure. But then
she’s mighty uncertain; you don’t know what she'll do next;
you can’t calculate on her, as you can on her sister. One
day she’s as friendly and cosy as a robin-redbreast, and the
next she chatters and snaps about like a sassy cat-bird. If
one thing don’t suit, nothing suits, and she has a peck for
everything. I guess she means to be kind-hearted, but don’t
realize other people’s feelings. Now Mary is quite different,
because she considers that there may be two sides to a ques-
tion, and that her neighbors have a right to their opinion as
well as she to hers. Then she’s such a charitable, fore-
thoughted one! Whenever there’s any sick folks to be
watched with, or any poor folks to be fed and sewed for, you
may cut around as fast as ever you can, and you'll find that
Miss Mary has been everywhere before you. Ain’t it so, Pa
Treat?”

“ Ex—actly!” said my foster-father with great emphasis.
“ Always fixing up soups and jellies, and crinkum-crankums,
and what-nots, for somebody. The best, handiest, puttiest
little angel that ever I see or heerd of.”

“Well, I must go up'and make a call on the little angel,”
said I, looking at my watch and rising.

“Do, Lewy!” urged Ma Treat. “Go right up, and ask
to see her particular. And if you can court her and get her
for a wife, Lewy, don’t fail to do it. Ma Treat recommends
her, and she’s a goodone. She is the daughter who has done
virtuously and excelled them all; Proverbs, thirty-first,
52 - SEACLIFF.

twenty-ninth. I had sot my heart on having her for Mr.
Jacobs-our-minister’s wife ; but I’d ruther by a great sight see
you carry her off; and so had Pa Treat. Good-bye, Lewy.”

Smiling in my sleeve at the eagerness with which my old
nurse plunged into the matrimonial question, I ran up stairs
to get a fresh pair of gloves, and take a precautionary sur-
vey of myself in the twelve-by-twenty looking-glass which
adorned my mantel.

 
 

 

 

CHAPTER V.

CEREMONIAL AND MORAL.

HILE I was still at my toilet, voices resounded in the
little front yard, and presently Ma Treat bustled up
with the intelligence that Mr. Somerville and those

Van Leers had called to see me.

“Shall I tell them that you'll come down?” she asked.
“ Qur parlor is yours, Lewy, and you may do whatever you
like there,—smoke or what not. Don’t you be afraid because
it’s the best room in the house. The best room that we've
got is none too good for your company, Lewy.”

Without knowing Ma Treat or some similarly immaculate
housewife of the olden kind, it would be impossible fully to
estimate the immensity of the sacrifice which was contained
in that proffer. To smoke in her parlor was about equivalent
in her eyes to smoking in church; and I am persuaded that
to no mortal beside myself and my intimates would she have
conceded that fragrant privilege. Thanking her as she de-
served, I told her that it would be more agreeable to see the
gentlemen in my chamber; and in a moment afterwards the
naked staircase rang and the ancient flooring of the passage
creaked beneath the tread of my visitors. First entered,
with his usual forwardness and vivacity, the skipping-jack,
then the two ponderous Van Leers, and lastly Somerville,
suavely nodding precedence to his companions.

“Well, Mr. Fitz Hugh, what sort of a night did you pass
54 SEACLIFF.

after our carouse ?” said. ‘Hunter, flinging himself into a rock-
ing-chair and slapping his boots with a riding-whip.. “I as-
sure you, gentlemen, that I consider myself a man of pretty
strong head; but for once the demon of wine was almost too
much for me, and I hooted and sang like a bacchanal all the
way back to Seacliff. Unless Mr. Fitz Hugh has the most
powerful nerves in the world, I think he must have got be-
tween his sheets in a remarkably happy frame of mind.”

He spoke so glibly, so pleasantly and with such assurance,
that I really hated to spoil his story, although astonished at
its enormous exaggeration. Still, thinking it best for princi-
ple’s sake to set him right, and not wishing to make my debut
at Seacliff in the character of a wine-bibber, I expressed my
surprise at the effect of sherry on his system, inasmuch as we
could hardly have drunk more than three glasses a piece.

“Not more than thtee glasses, you think!” he exclaimed,
with a crestfallen look. “Why, I was just telling Mr. Som-
erville, I think, that we must have finished the bottle. Didn’t
I say something of that sort, Somerville?”

“Two bottles, you said, my dear fellow. But it makes no
difference. A bottle more or less is of no account.”

- Mr. Hunter willingly retreated behind this frail apology
for his flight of fancy, and subsided into a momentary silence,
perhaps somewhat humiliated.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh,” said Somerville, “our visit is partly
ceremonial and partly moral. The ceremonial portion con-
sists in giving you formal welcome to Seacliff, when you
know already that we are delighted to see you here. As for
the moral or practical portion, I suppose it lies in accepting
your hospitalities. (I was handing cigars and matches.)
Thank you ;—I vastly prefer the cheroots; they are milder
and sooner finished. By the way, smoking is quite a moral
exercise since the Reveriés of a Bachelor were written. I
have a friend who reads that book through once a year, solely
for the purpose of enjoying his cigars in a proper frame of
spirit. He thinks that, with that preparation, one of these
weeds is equal to high mass.”
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 55

“Tf that is so,” broke in Mr. Hunter, “then I ought to
be one of the best Christians a-going. Gentlemen, I think
I am speaking within bounds when I say that I have smoked
more cigars than any other man of my age. Why, when I
was in college I never thought of going through the day
without puffing off at least thirty. I think you will allow,
Mr. Fitz Hugh, that that was a pretty fair allowance, consid-
ering that I graduated at twenty.”

“You han’t graduated yet, and you an’t twenty,” put in
Robert Van Leer, rather grufily.

“T am aware of the ill-natured justice of your correction,
Bob,” said Hunter ; “ but I shall graduate, and shall be twenty
on or about the same time; vide Family Bible and College
Catalogue. The essential of my assertion remains uncontra-
dicted, and that is that I have smoked thirty cigars per
diem.”

“ Thirty cigars a day is enormous,” I remarked. “I won-
der you haven’t destroyed your digestion.”

“Tt demands a constitution of iron,” he obligingly admitted,
but seemed to consider that a sufficient concession, and did
not offer to let my faith off at a lower figure. Later in our
acquaintance he retracted ten cigars, and only insisted on
twenty a day, explaining that the others were exhausted in
treating his classmates or purchasing the favorable counte-
nance of one of the tutors.

Meantime I felt a gentle craving at my heart, which no
observations concerning cigars could satisfy, and. which, I
knew, would not be quieted, until I should be able to bring
up the Misses Westervelt as a subject of conversation. To
gain this end after a roundabout, undetected fashion, I turned
to the married Van Leer, and hoped that his wife and the
other ladies of Seacliff had not suffered by the excitement of
the previous evening. Before the slow creature’s brain could
realize the meaning of my remark, Hunter answered for
him.
“Thank you, Mr. Fitz Hugh; my sister and cousins are
56 SEACLIFF.

quite well. They will be happy to see you this afternoon, or
whenever you feel disposed to call.”

“T believe that the only person who has suffered in con-
sequence of the evening is Miss Capers,” smiled Somer-
ville.

“Come now, Mr. Somerville! none of that! no expo-
sures!” exclaimed the skipping-jack, rising from his chair,
and striding to and fro with all the dignity of port that his
short legs would warrant. “A lady’s name should be sacred.
We must make allowance, too, for the inexperience of a
mere country girl. When I told you those circumstances,
Mr. Somerville, I understood, although, perhaps, I forgot to
say, that the confession was made under a supposition of the
profoundest secrecy. I feel free to blame you for your impru-
dence, because I am able at the same time to declare that I
never before knew you to transgress the slightest, the most
airy boundary of instinctive delicacy. It is the only error,
my friend, with which I have to charge you during all our
acquaintance. In point of fact, however, I can’t find much
fault with you for it. The joke was too good a one to keep,
by Jove! Mr. Fitz Hugh, that young lady must be a very
sensitive one, who ventures on sentimentalities and quotes
love verses the first time that she ever meets you. But, gentle-
men, notwithstanding some slight indiscretion in Miss Capers,
I think I can assure you,—and I want you to mark my
words,—that if ever she has a year’s experience of good
society, she will emerge from it one of the most entrancing
creatures that ever wore figured stockings. She has the stuff
in her to make a reigning toast of.”

“Milk toast, or dry?” asked Somerville, with a good-
natured, tired smile, like that of a polite man who has heard
insipidities enough.

“Mr. Somerville,” replied the original, stopping short in
his promenade and throwing out his right hand tragically,
“allow me to tell you that you are the most diabolical fellow
at spoiling poetry that I ever met. But I will answer: milk
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 57

toast, in her present state of pastoral innocence; dry, when
she has been held long enough to the slow fire of fashion.”

Quite satisfied with his final effort, he took to his rocking-
chair again, crossed his legs, fell back gracefully and lighted
another cheroot. I was unwilling now to recall the names
of the Misses Westervelt to notice, for fear that this voluble
youth might proceed to hint that they too had fallen down at
his feet and worshipped.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh,” said Somerville, taking advantage of
our small friend’s brief silence, “I am very glad that you
have joined our little coterie. The circle was large enough
before, to be agreeable; but one or two more well-selected
persons were needed to make it a luxury. I don’t think that
you will find time hang heavy on your hands. Indeed, it
would be no compliment to you to. prophecy the contrary ; for
I believe that, in general, it is only empty-headed people*-who
find their time a burden. Things here are decidedly pleasant.
I don’t, of course, include myself among the attractions of
the place. I am a mere guest, or, in hotel phrase, a transient
and not a permanent. But the long and short of it is, that
there are just about women enough here, and just about men
enough, and they are all interesting.”

“Thank you, Mr. Somerville,” observed Hunter, nonchal-
‘ently, at the same time looking with one eye through a smoke-
ring which he had just exhaled.

' “You will certainly find them so when you come to know
them better,” continued Somerville. “The salient point of
my friend Mr. Henry Van Leer’s character is, that he has
one of the prettiest, handiest sloop-yachts that ever lay off
Hoboken.” ,

. “That’s a fact, Somerville, if you are a joking,” observed
the individual referred to, speaking for the first time since
he bade me good-morning and asked me how I found my-
self.

“ As for Mr. Robert Van Leer,” pursued Somerville, “his

originality breaks out chiefly in shark-fishing. He will catch
3%
58 SEACLIEFF.

his weight in sharks any day that the weather is at all favor-
able.”

“Double that, old feller; hooked about four hundred
weight of ’em one day,” was Robert’s remark.

“Mr. Frederick Hunter I shall not praise,” added Somer-
ville. “Myr. Hunter will praise himself, as the jockey said
of his best horse.”

The two Van Leers burst into a loud laugh, enjoying the
sarcasm ponderously, and, as it were, hippopotamus fashion.

“ Gentlemen, I insist upon justice,” exclaimed the satirized
youth, starting up and skating about in his characteristic walk,
one hand holding his cheroot, the other waving as if he were
addressing a jury. “I will not be tried and condemned at
the bar of my friend’s wit, without claiming right of appeal.
I lay my case before the world and Miss Capers.”

“ Interested parties,” said Somerville.

Hunter shook hands with him in recognition of the flattery,
and sat down again to his cheroot, satisfied with himself and
with all things sublunary. He was not annoyed at being
bantered by his clever friend, but took it as a compliment to
the force and conspicuousness of his own individuality ; for,
incredible as it may seem to the modest reader, there is a
vanity so dense that it is proof against all wit, and can be
shattered only by downright billingsgate or a fisticuff.

I learned by this interview that Somerville was the social
bully of Seacliff, driving the men with the same ease that he
seemed to wheedle the women, and managing both with so
much tact, wit, and grace, that it was difficult for them to
detect his tyranny. He was just satirical enough* on his
male comrades to make them afraid of him, yet not suf-
ficiently severe to provoke them into risking a rebellion.
I thought to myself that he would not be able either to
seare or hoodwink me, and I therefore suspected that some
day or other we should have a controversy. However, I felt
amicably disposed toward him for the present, notwithstanding
a slight pang of jealousy when I thought of the Misses Wes-
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 59

tervelt; and knowing that he would be a dangerous antag-
onist, capable of making a man exceedingly uncomfortable, I
resolved to avoid a rupture with him as long as possible.

“ Well, Messieurs Van Leer and Hunter,” said he pres-
ently, “I propose that we depart. We have bored Mr. Fitz
Hugh sufficiently, this morning, to make him free of Seacliff
hospitalities for all the summer. We must remember, too,
that he has a right to his dinner. I think I smell hot meat,
and I fancy that our friend’s knife and fork are ready for him.
Good morning, Mr. Fitz Hugh. We depend on you for this
afternoon at three. Van Leer the senior, here, proposes to
put his yacht at your service, and let you hunt in his shark
preserve.”

“Very happy; depend on you, sir,” remarked the said
personage, concisely, but with a face’full of sincerity. As I
surveyed that broad moon of stolid amiability, his counte-
nance, I could not but wonder that he should be a hard hus-
band, wearing matrimony like a crown of thorns rather than
of roses. His brother, Robert, slowly rolled out of his chair,
nodded, and lumbered into the hall, without speaking. Mean-
time the skipping-jack uncrossed his legs, tossed the stump of
his cigar out of the window, rose to the fullest altitude of his
five feet four inches, and, by his whole manner, prepared us
for something very impressive in the way of a valedictory.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh,” he enunciated, “I never fancied ship-
timber, nor horseflesh, but I do know that I have a perfect
genius for Jamaica Rum. If you will call at my room, at
any time, I can offer. you some of the rarest rum that ever

-dispensed its perfume to the Atlantic breeze as it sailed the
Gulf Stream. Will you come? Ah! you will be very
happy—that is the old phrase. But, will you promise to
come? Thank you. Good-morning.”

The rhetorical flourish with which he uttered the common-
est things was one of the most amusing points in the deport-
ment of this young gentleman. When he bade you a good-
morning, it seemed as if he were taking you up into an
60 SEACLIFF.

exceeding high mountain, and offering you the kingdoms of
the earth and the glory of them, so magniloquent were the
gestures, attitudes, and expressions which he contrived to ex-
tract from his small frame and undersized countenance. As
he marched out of the gate I could not avoid overhearing his
judgment of me. “When'I first saw that Fitz Hugh, I
thought he was a gigantesque wooden-spoon, and took no
notice of him,” said he. “ But I was mistaken, and propose
now to cultivate him as much as possible. He is a perfect
gentleman, and a remarkably shrewd, well-informed fellow.”

“T understand,” replied Somerville. “ He has turned out
a good listener, and that is all you want, you most sociable
and inventive of creatures.”

“ Come, come, Mr. Somerville! I have already protested
against being judged on the merits of your satire,” was the
self-satisfied response of a man whose monstrous vanity would
not let him understand that he had been called a babbler and
a liar.

Somerville’s prophecy, that time would hang lightly on
my hands at Seacliff, was agreeably fulfilled. Mornings, af-
ternoons, and evenings, I called on the people of the country-
house, walked, rode, drove, sailed, and fished with them, went
to church at Rockford in their double carriage, accompanied
them to an agricultural fair at Bridgeport, and assisted at all
their evening entertainments of dancing, charades, and tab-
leaux vivants. By the end of a week I could associate more
pleasant emotions with the spot than with some other places
where I had remained months or years. It was curious, too,
though possibly not incomprehensible, that as my affection for
Seacliff increased, just so, in exact proportion, did I become
more interested in the Misses Westervelt, one or both of them,
I could not tell which. The sentimental reader will perhaps
suspect that it was the Misses Westervelt chiefly who made
the place so charming. I will not undertake to dispute the
sentimental reader altogether; he is often wonderfully saga-
cious in his surmises, especially concerning the feelings of the
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 61

young; and then my conscience tells me that, had the two
young girls been two old maids, I should not have gone to
Seacliff, no matter what mystery haunted it.

But the other members of our little coterie were also,
in my eyes at least, a peculiar people. Somerville was the
most wonderful incarnation of blandness, grace, and social
flexibility that I had ever met, reminding perpetually of those
famous carpet-knights, sans peur et sans reproche, the Chester-
fields and Richelieus of old. This idea of his elegance, indeed,
is taken from a young man’s point of view, and it is very pos-,
sible that had I been a few years older, had I seen more of
society, his polish would not have seemed to me so dazzling
and incomparable. There was a noticeable difference be-
tween his manner toward men and his manner toward women.
In the company of us male beings he had the tone of a man
of the world; clever, practical, freely exhibiting his superior
abilities, full of gay badinage, and often sarcastic; never irri-
tating, however, because his satire was conveyed in delicate
language, and sweetened with a smile of the suaviest friendli-
ness. “If I did not know your good nature and your excel-
lent sense,” this smile appeared to say, “I should not dare to
venture upon such an unworthy piece of pleasantry.” But
Somerville uttered no sarcasms, not even upon his masculine
fellow-creatures,.in the presence of women. He thought,
perhaps, that no subject should be presented for their consid-
eration, which was not perfumed, roseate, halcyon, calculated
to bring out their gentlest emotions, or at least unlikely to
vex their fair faces with ungracious excitement. If he con-
tradicted them, his doubts were as insinuating as sleep, his
arguments an appeal to their vanity, and his adverse decisions
figures of speech. His whole deportment, indeed, through all
its ingredients of posture, gesture, look, voice, words, and ideas,
was a marvellously soothing prescription, perfectly adapted
to assuaging moral inflammations, producing cheerful opiate
illusions, and leaving the subject of treatment in a delicious
trance of self-satisfaction. Nothing could be more demulcent
62 SEACLIFF.

and balsamic; it made me think of anodynes and cherry pec-
torals; it was enough to cure a cold only to hear him talk.
Occasionally, indeed, I wondered whether there might not be
some harshness, some vulgarity of soul, under this downy
coating of courtesy. Might he not, like that fair dissembler,
a peach, have a stone for a heart? It was an interesting
question, but I let it lie for the present, not being able to
answer it.
Another person who deserved and got a great deal of my
Wonder was little Mr. Hunter. Only nineteen years old, as
we have learned, he looked twenty-four and talked sixty.
He.was one of the most braggart, garrulous, shallow, pup-
pyish, superficially-plausible, mischievous, well-meaning, rest-
less, skipping creatures, who ever had a high opinion of
himself without meaning thereby to depreciate his fellow
men. He was not malicious, nor uncommonly vicious; his
failings, in fact, partook more of the character of suicide than
of murder: they were considerably to his own injury, without
doing much damage to others. His stature was small and
his weight trifling, but he was not in the least suspicious of
it. His conversation was nicotian and spirituous, hovering
with tireless satisfaction about the subjects of tobacco and
strong liquors, and dispensing a moral aroma which re-
minded one of the odors of a bar-room. He had such high
sentiments of honor that I cannot blame him severely for not
always trying to act up to them; and perhaps it was in con-
sequence of his immense respect for the truth, that he usually
magnified and adorned it as much as possible. One result of
this last peculiarity was that his talk had an inexhaustible
variety ; he never, or hardly ever, told the same story twice
in the same way; his freedom from the monotony of facts
was delightful. In short, he seemed to converse on the
principle that two lies make a truth, just as two negatives
make an affirmative. In all his communications concerning
his own history he acknowledged the existence of the ideal
Hunter much more distinctly than that of the real Hunter.
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 63

If, on any trying occasion, his Objective had told a cowardly
lie, when his Subjective had conceived a heroic truth, he re-
lated the circumstance as if the latter alone had spoken, and
had thereby conferred immortal honor on the name of Hunter.
So of physical courage: the actual man sometimes trembled
for his person ; the fictive man was invariably as brave as
Achilles ; and the lion-like emotions of the latter were
reported as the deeds of the former. During the first few
days of our acquaintance I made various absurd mistakes as
to the identity of these two individuals, and, hearing of. the
transcendent worthiness of Hunter the poetic, imputed it all
to Hunter the prosaic, who in fact was subject to the ordinary
weaknesses of humanity. By a little effort you can easily
see a common person’s ideal standing up alongside of him;
and the loftier, the more ethereal it is, the smaller and
earthier it makes the poor reality appear. Hunter, how-
ever, never could distinguish between himself and his par-
helion. He made a mistake in the morale which would be
very nearly paralleled in the physical world, by a man who
should ignore his own body and only acknowledge the ex-
istence of his shadow or his reflection in the mirror. What
an extremely ridiculous blunder, and how fortunate for the
dignity of humanity that so few of us fall into it!

The Van Leer brothers would commonly be considered
very uninteresting individuals. ‘They were as silent as
Spartans, and as stupid as Beeotians. Their intellectual and
moral nature seemed to be feeble and iniponderable in pro-
portion as their physique was muscular and weighty. They
were so much alike that when one was ‘present you did not
miss the other, and so dull that when both were absent you
did not miss either. Yet, in spite of this unusual vacuity
of character, they afforded another proof of the great rule that
no human being exists, whose mind, like his face, has not
some distinctive features, some indestructible expression of
individuality. They had a certain brute resistance, a vis
inertia, a “strength -to -sit still,” which unobtrusively de-
64° SEACLIFF.

manded, and finally obtained, some small measure of con-
sideration. Honesty of purpose, when they had a purpose,
was as natural to them as the hair of their heads; and in
their broad faces appeared a bovine modesty and mildness
which expressed the stolid benignity of their characters.
The only superficial difference between them was, that Rob-
ert was the least taciturn and the most easily attracted. He
soon granted me his friendship, his trust, his confessions, his
admiration, and rather more of his presence than I would _
have required if the choice had been left me.

As for his brother, it was weeks before I penetrated his
seven-fold bullhides of phlegmatic reserve, to where the blood
was warm and the heart was beating. One cause of this
greater reticence, doubtless, was that he had a wife; for the
confidences of a married man do not easily flow out toward
his bachelor acquaintance. He has another duct for his emo-
tions ; he has told his tale to one who always hears him well ;
he need not repeat it at reckless random; his desire for sym-
pathy is satisfied. And yet this poor fellow and his wife are
always quarrelling, I said to myself; for no other hypothesis
can satisfactorily explain the words of wrath which exhaled
through the keyhole of the boudoir. No wonder at it, I
added; they are totally different in tastes and temperament ;
and her levity must naturally become impatient of his heavi-
ness. J had not yet observed how steadily Nature tries to
obviate extremes, and to restore endangered’ equilibriums,
by leading us to love and unite with our opposites. Tall men
marry short women; dull men marry lively women; and so
it should be. I myself was six feet high, and prayed for a
little wife, if any. Returning to Mr. and Mrs. Van Leer, I
confess with shame, that their matrimonial disagreement was
a humorous spectacle to me, and that I watched its symptoms
with a malicious gusto, for which, in all poetical justice, I
ought to have been punished by the gift of a Xantippe. In
a spirit of still deeper compunction, I admit that I one day
related to Somerville my eaves-dropping adventure at the
CEREMONIAL AND MORAL. 65

door of the boudoir. He laughed in such a constrained man-
ner that I took it as a reproof to my babbling, and proceeded
to stammer forth that very likely the whole proceeding was a
mere boisterous joke on the part of Mr. Van Leer.

“A charitable suggestion,” said he ; “but don’t be. deceived
by it. Our friend Henry will have to go through several
processes of transmigration, and be a monkey at least once,
before he becomes capable of a joke. : I am afraid that he
and Mrs. Van Leer are simply getting used to each other,
and wearing off their corners by attrition.”

‘About the only discord in the life of: Seacliff was an occa-
sional sharp note from Miss Genevieve. At least once every
day she seemed to remember some unpleasant mystery in the
household existence, and gave-tongue to a sarcasm or two,
meant to startle, I could not exactly swear whom, although I
always glanced inquiringly at the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Van
Leer. Clever and handsome as the girl was, I began to dis-
like her as a tartar. But in spite of these little jars, my first
week at Seacliff was wonderfully pleasant, and lingers on my
memory now like an echo of gay music. Van Leer’s yacht
played the chief instrumental part in our social harmony.’ In
this fleet, fragile skimmer, we waged fierce maritime war
against the sharks and other finny tribes, besides making ex-
cursions to the Narrows, Long Island, Bridgeport, and New
Haven. Mrs. Van Leer always went, always got sea-sick, al-
ways blamed her husband for it, and vowed she would never
go again. The rest of us were good sailors, and endured her
sufferings with much philosophy. The Van Leers considered
themselves very clever in working their coquettish little clip-
per, and quite equal to taking the conceit out of a stiff breeze ;
but, in case of a long excursion, they remembered the possi-
bility of a northeaster, and reinforced their seamanship with
the amphibious wisdom of Pa Treat. My foster-father was,
like Ulysses, a knowing navigator, and a much enduring man:
in a squall he could manage the yacht as easily as trundle a
wheelbarrow, and in a calm he could let the Van Leers have
66 SEACLIFF.

their own blundering way. The only circumstance which pre-
vented him from being a perfect commander, was his entire
inability, except in a blow, to think of the right word at the
right time ; for on sea as on shore he had temporary names for
things, and was in a fair way, if his influence should become
extensive and permanent, to make an entirely new speech of
the Anglo-Saxon, and necessitate a radical revisal of Web-
ster’s Dictionary. The helm, for instance, was sometimes the
thingumbob, sometimes the jigamaree, sometimes the rinktum.
He used to amuse us immensely by observing, in his slow,
stammering way, that it was about time to furl the crimkum-
crankum, or.to set the rigajig, or to port the what-d’ye-call-
um, at the same time pointing with his forefinger to illustrate
his imperfect utterance. But it was interesting to observe
how this impediment fell from off him in a moment of danger,
and how clearly and promptly his orders came when the
yacht was dipping her bulwarks, and the’ sea was whitening
under the angry breath of a squall. Who has not known of
similar or parallel cases? Many an experienced surgeon feels
his knife shake until the moment that he applies it to the
flesh. I once travelled with a dead shot, whose hand used to
tremble like a leaf while he raised his weapon, but who in
the act of firing, was transformed to marble, and never missed
his mark.

But let us linger no longer among such helter-skelter
reminiscences of character and unimportant incident. Really,
these writers of books sometimes become excessively tedious.
 

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL.

befell me which I shall presume to call noticeable

because it made me, heart and soul, an actor in the
domestic drama of Seacliff. I had an engagement to ride
with the Misses Westervelt and Somerville, but on entering
the house at the hour appointed, I found the young ladies still
in their morning dresses.

“ We can’t go yet,” said Genevieve. “One of the horses
has cast a shoe and been sent to the blacksmith’s. But
come in and wait. We can play backgammon till he comes
back.”

Instead of backgammon we chose cards, and amused our-
selves for half an hour with solitaire, old-maid, telling for-
tunes, &c. .I remember perfectly what a succession of thrills
I underwent when the magic slips of paper declared that I
was to be the young man who admired Mary,—who became
engaged to her,—who married,—yes, ye gods, married her!
I consulted Mary’s face at each of these heart-shaking an-
nouncements, and was disappointed, almost incensed, to dis-
cover there only the faintest, the most ethereal of blushes,
and that perhaps the mere child of laughter. I would have
preferred something warmer than rose-tint, I had become so
singularly partial to the Misses Westervelt.

“T hear the horses,” said Mary, throwing down the cards.
“ Come, Jenny; we must hurry.”

Se en a week after my domiciliation an adventure
68 SEACLIFF.

As she rose from the table her sleeve caught a miniature
case and flung it on the floor. Picking it up and rewarding
myself by opening it, I found it to be her portrait ; a daguer-
reotype, indeed, and therefore doing her blonde beauty una-
voidable injustice ; but, for all that, remarkably like, especi-
ally in the sweet expression.

“Ah, that is the only good daguerreotype that ever was
taken of me,” she observed, glancing-at it over my shoulder.
It seemed to me at that moment as if my blood must be full
of little bubbles, like champagne. If the youth lives who can
feel, totally unmoved, that a beautiful girl’s neck-ribbon is
fluttering and rustling against his coat-collar, he must excuse
me for regarding him with mingled curiosity and pity.

“ Excellent! perfect!” I muttered, anxious to say some-
thing nice about the original, but unable to think to the
purpose. . .

“T know three persons who are dying to have that pic-
ture,” laughed Genevieve, looking back from the doorway.

“Am I one of them?” I asked, with an eager bluntness
which scared me.

“No,” replied Genevieve, very coolly, as she shut the door
after herself and sister.

I was painfully’ cut and offended, I remember, by this
reply, and wasted the next ten minutes in wondering what
the deuce the saucy little chit meant by it. Another annoy-
ing circumstance was, that when we came to mount, Somer-
ville, as the oldest cavalier, took charge of the oldest sister,
aided her into the saddle with enviable dexterity, and set off
by her side as gracefully as he would have started in a polka:
Evidently I need not hope to eclipse him in the field any
more than in the parlor.

The mounting of the young ladies was their own, a pres-
ent, as I understood, from their grandfather, and consisted of
a perfectly matched pair of wiry little blacks, spirited and
speedy, broken alike to saddle and harness. My horse, the
property of the same wealthy senior, was a slender bay, half-
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 69

blooded, and the best animal that I ever bestrode. Somer-
ville had Henry Van Leer’s beast, a dark chestnut, with white
feet, powerful and swift, but with shies enough in him to un-
seat a squadron of dragoons. I began to feel, before we had
been long on the road, that if he should scare his rider to
death, or break his handsome nose, it would be no enormous
drawback on my happiness. I was very anxious to gain the
admiration of the Misses Westervelt, and Somerville was
making himself alarmingly attractive to them. By means of
his leading questions and Socratic stratagems of dialogue he
kept Mary constantly talking, except when he himself dis-
coursed, rolling out his superb mellow tones with a sort of
poetic elation quite congenial to the surrounding gay summer
flowers, the sweet exuberance of green meadow, and the
gladdening tide of sunlight.

Before long, I suspected that Miss Genevieve was even
more dissatisfied than myself with the division of our party.
She became sententious, sulky, and finally silent, taking small
notice of my many offers at conversation, and checking her
lively black until she rasped him into a foaming, snorting
tempest of horseflesh. I was surprised at this; the day
before, Genevieve had not seemed to like Somerville ; to-day,
she was evidently annoyed by his preference for her sister.
Women are full of apparent contradictions, I soliloquized ;
not so much because they are unstable, as because they are
restricted. Society will not let them speak frankly : but de-
mands that they should seem to avoid those whom they pre-
fer, and that they should often endure with smiles what they
detest. Upon this hint I spake.  *

“Miss Genevieve, do women often wish themselves men ?”

She colored so quickly that I queried whether I had not
touched upon the very subject of her thoughts.

“ Cé’st selon ;—that depends,” said she, translating herself.
—“That depends: upon what? may I ask. The woman’s
nature, or her position ?”

“Both, of course,” she answered, and then fell to dis-
70 SEACLIFF.

ciplining her horse, who had started at sight of a distant
searecrow. As it occupied her a full minute to bring the
nervous creature into a snufiling semi-subjection, I lost the
thread of my remarks, and had to begin on a fresh spindle..

“Has any one ever mentioned to you a resemblance be-
tween yourself and Guido’s Beatrice de’ Cenci?”

“ My father has.” -

“T am curious to know whether you can see the: likeness.”

“ No. ?, 5

Another paroxysm of. sireeuiean now ensued with the
unfortunate black, who fairly squealed with indignation, and
evidently looked upon himself as a cheval incompris.

“ Genevieve ! Genevieve!” begged Mary. “Please don’t
fret that poor horse so. Treat him ‘gently, do, dear. He is
a good little fellow.”

Genevieve sulkily declined to reply, or even to turn her
head; but for a minute we cantered on peaceably, though in
embarrassing silence. Presently I tried a new topic, and
gave the wheel of conversation another revolution:

“This is a picturesque country in a small way. The pres-
ence of sea view makes up for the lack of high relief in the
landscape. I wonder that more New Yorkers do not come
here to find sites for their country-houses.”

“Yes.”

“We were speaking the other day of the beauties of New
Haven. Have you ever visited Norwich in the eastern
part of tle state?”

“ Never,” ss :

Dieless to ask your opinion of it, then. For my part, I
consider it one of the most fortunate towns in point of situa-
tion, that can be found in the country.. It perches on both
sides of a river, with high, irregular banks, which command
each other so perfectly, that from every salient point in the
city you can obtain a view of the whole. It has rare ad-
vantages for showing itself to itself, and, so to speak, mirror-
ing its excellences in its own vision.”
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 71

“Like some people,” observed the gracious little lady,
without turning her eyes from her horse’s forelock.

“Oh!.you are satirical,” said I, quite desperate, “you
insinuate a charge of vanity. _Well, I shall plead not guilty,
merely for form’s sake, and stand a trial. Please to open
the examination.”

“T have none to make. I did not allude to you,” was the
discouraging reply.

I felt indignant at last, and resolved to let her hold her
tongue just as long as that. should be her ladylike pleasure.
I was puzzled as well as annoyed; for this was the first
irksome interview that I had ever had with Genevieve, not-
withstanding her general: independence and occasional cap-
tiousness; and I felt tolerably certain, that I personally had
done nothing which could estify her in thus consuming me
with her indignation. Some one ‘else had perturbed her, it
was clear ; and I suffered, simply for the crime of contiguity.
There are certain persons,—we have all seen them,—whose
instinct it is, when they receive'a wrong, to revenge it upon
the first living creature that comes within reach. They are
not necessarily termagants ; they may have, at other times,
very gentle and generous emotions ; ‘but they are as illogical
and inconsiderate in their ebullitions as tea-kettles; they
know no better than to boil over and scald what is nearest.
Genevieve must sulk at me because she is separated from
Somerville, I concluded ; for a girl: rarely quarrels with one
marriageable man except for the sake of another.

On we rode for ten or fifteen minutes, glumly inarticulate,
and chiefly occupied, as I believe, in listening to the snatches
of animated colloquy which now and then reached our ears
from the pair behind us. Coming to a short, but steep rise
in.the ground, where the road was guttered by recent rain,
and the footing uncertain in consequence of large, loose peb-
bles, we drew up our horses and fell into a walk, so that
Somerville’s conversation became distressingly audible. He
was evidently shining in his fullest lustre, and perhaps send-
72 SEACLIFF.

ing his rays deep into the hearts of both the Misses Wester-
velt. But on reaching the brow of the hill, a change came
over the face of things, and I, the opaque one, the unexpressed,
the unappreciated, suddenly found my moment of glory, and
put on a splendid halo. Genevieve and I, riding in advance,
had just passed a blackberry thicket, when I noticed an
Italian organ-grinder seated in its shadow, his uncouth
music-box towering above his shoulders, and that surmounted
by a little ruffian of a monkey in a scarlet blouse. Just then,
he rose to his feet and staggered abruptly forward, as a
heavily weighted man is apt to do when he suddenly over-
balances himself.. Somerville’s fractious chestnut shied with
great violence against Miss Westervelt’s animal, bearing him
half round by sheer weight, and then dashed across the road
in such headlong ponderous terzor, that his rider could not
prevent him from leaping a rail fence which divided us from
a sunken meadow. The black caught the panic, and reared
so violently, that Miss Westervelt nearly lost her saddle.
As he came on all fours again, he discovered the unlucky
musician, and, wheeling short on his haunches, went off like
lightning down the stony, dangerous hill towards. Seacliff.
“Catch her! stop her!” shrieked Genevieve, losing her
_ presence of mind, and wildly backing her own animal;
while, giving the whip to my beast, I bounded away at full
speed after the fugitive, who by this time had gained a start
of twenty rods, and was increasing it rapidly. A horse,
running toward home, is not easily arrested short of it, so
that I, did not much hope that Miss Westervelt would be
able to pull up before she reached Seacliff. I could see,
indeed, that she was drawing vigorously on the bit, and
even reducing her pace somewhat; and I took courage as I
felt the steady, grey-hound stride of the bay under me, cover-
ing more than a rod at a bound, and lessening the gap at
every double: but in another moment the black’s bridle-
rein flew out in a single strand and swung under his feet,
broken, useless. I knew at once that Miss Westervelt had
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 73

lost all command over him, and I prayed only that she might
be able to cling for one minute more to her saddle. Her
horse now leaped out with all the power that lay in his fine
lathy quarters, and, though he ran very irregularly, reeling
from one side of the road to the other, he still ran with ter-
rific swiftness. Frightened as he was, however, lightly
weighted as he was, wiry, game, and spirited, he was no
match for the bay. His lean, light neck stretched to its full
length, his delicate muzzle pointed low, his thin mane flying
like a pennon of victory, my noble creature swept over the
ground with long elastic leaps, hardly jarring me in the sad-
dle, never jerking, never swerving, running as straight as the
flight of an arrow, and as stanch as a thorough-bred racer.
In less than half a minute, the black’s lead of twenty rods
had been reduced to as many yards, and in ten seconds more
the bay was neck and neck with him. I lapped him on the
left, notwithstanding the risk of sheering against. Miss Wes-
tervelt, partly because I saw the broken rein flying loose on
that side, and partly because I wanted my right hand for the
approaching struggle. It had been easy to overtake him, but
it looked perilously difficult to stop him. From the moment
that my horse challenged him, he ran faster than ever, strug-
gling with all the pluck in his little body, and staggering so
wildly in his worry and eagerness, that, had I not forged
ahead of him in a couple of strides, Miss Westervelt would
have been badly bruised between his flank and the bay’s.
As I passed his quivering muzzle, he flung it up in such a
way that I was able to catch the swinging end of the rein and
grasp it firmly. Now came the task of drawing in my own
horse, so delicately as to get him and keep him a little be-
hind the runaway’s lead, yet not have the strip of leather
wrenched from my hold by any sudden plunge of either ani-
mal forward or sideways. Of course I succeeded; the true
prince always succeeds on such occasions ; if he did not, the
world would be as dissatisfied as he. The black’s nose

swerved toward me, while his body swerved from me, until
4
74 SEACLIFF.

he ran at a disadvantage; and in a hundred yards more, his
violent flight had fallen to a jerking, rearing canter, only
dangerous by its irregularity. Still doubting my power to
check him altogether, I called out, “Jump!”

Miss Westervelt leaped to the ground, fell once, but rose
instantly and ran to the roadside. Free now to pursue my
controversy with blackie, regardless of anybody’s safety but
my own, I soon brought him to terms, and consigned him to
the hands of a stout farmer boy who came up from a neigh-
boring field. Dismounting hurriedly, and tying the bay to a
tree, I ran back to Miss Westervelt. She sat, or reclined
rather, on a bank by the road, her cap fallen off, her beauti-
ful hair disordered, her head resting on her palm, her elbow
on the turf, and her face so pale that I hastened to her,
more alarmed than I had been during the heat of the mad
escapade. She did not change her posture as she saw me
coming, but she lifted one hand to me with a beautiful ges-
ture of gratitude, and her one sweet word was, “Thank
you!”

I bent over her ;—I dared to take the small trembling fin-
gers ;—I dared to kiss them once, twice, passionately.

“Thank you,” she said again. “Thank you, my dear
friend.”

“Oh, God bless you!” I cried. “I am glad I had strength
given me to do it.”

I had found out which of the Misses Westervelt it was
that had brought me to Seacliff, that had kept me there, and
that could keep me there during life. It was a blessed dis-
covery to me, but Iam afraid that the great world will not
properly appreciate it. Let us say no more on the subject,
for if I give myself full speech, I shall appear like a fool to
that large and respectable class of people whose hearts can-
not keep step with other men’s, and whose ideas, like the
works of a watch, are always tightly encased in the precious
metals.

Horses’ feet were heard now, furiously trampling the road
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 75

behind us; and looking round, we saw Genevieve coming at
full speed, closely followed by Somerville.

“You are not hurt, Miss Westervelt?” asked the latter,
when he reached us. “Did you stop him, Mr. Fitz Hugh?
Then you did a hard thing.”

Genevieve sprang from her horse, and covered Mary’s
face with kisses and tears. Turning to me at last, she
thanked me over and over again, with a very humility of
fervor, which, I felt assured, was partly prompted by a re-
morseful remembrance of her late unsociability. Presently
I shifted Miss Westervelt’s saddle on to the bay, and we
mounted again, but only to canter slowly back to Seacliff.

Immediately on our arrival, my gallantry was promulgated
in the most flattering manner, through the well-oiled and me-
lodious trumpet of Somerville. He praised me so delicately
and gracefully, he threw in such a humorous allegro concern-
ing bis own forced escapade into the meadow, he sounded the
danger of Miss Westervelt in such pathetic notes, that he
actually appeared to better advantage in telling the story
than I in being the hero of it. Certainly, it is an enviable
thing to be an accomplished man of the world, never at a loss
for a bow, a smile, a good saying, and a compliment. Seated
as I was in the state-coach of my illustrious deed, I could not
help feeling belittled by the presence of Somerville, even
while he had the air of walking uncovered before me, and of
blowing, “Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!”
But my friends were not quite charmed by him into an entire
forgetfulness of my merits. Mrs. Westervelt thanked me,
and pressed my hands with such a simple, natural warmth
of feeling, as melted away all her waxen affectations, and
made her seem for a moment like a deep-souled, earnest
woman. .

“Be mod—est now, Mr. Fitz Hugh,” whispered Mrs. Van
Leer. “You have a claim on my cousin, but don’t ask too
‘much. You gentlemen are so exigeant !”

“Brayvo! your’e a trump, Mary,” said Henry Van Leer,
76 SEACLIFF.

more stirred than was his heavy wont. “Glad you; kept
such a stiff upper lip. Little hoss run like a Jamplighter ;
did he? ‘Wish I’d been there to see it. Brayvo for the
bay! he’s a regular flyer, and no mistake. I wish my hoss
hadn’t bolted, though; it would have been such a pretty
race! I say, Fitz Hugh, ll run my hoss against the bay
with you for anything you want to name, and me the heaviest
weight.”

{One other person took upon himself to be so officiously
and boisterously grateful for my salvatory exploit, that he
gave me a sensation of uneasiness unpleasantly akin to jeal-
ousy. This was my beefy crony, Robert Van Leer, who
clamored about me like a happy earthquake, fairly astonish-
ing me by the volubility which took the place of his usual
aptitude for silence. If my Egyptian mummy should clap
me on the shoulder, and enter into an animated discourse
concerning his eternal obligations to me for delivering
him from the catacombs, I should not be much more sur-
prised than I was at this garrulous outburst of emotion in
Robert.

“Oh, Fitz Hugh! my dear feller!” he roared, dragging
me to one side so that he could shake my arms off without
being interrupted. “I thank you,—I do, old feller,—from
the bottom of my heart. I say, I’m so glad you was there
to put in and help her, that I don’t know whether I’m on my
head or heels.”

Miss Westervelt blushed, and hurried out of the room,
muttering something about changing her dress. The other
ladies followed; Mrs. Westervelt and Genevieve smiling in
an embarrassed way; Mrs. Van Leer laughing outright with
gay malice. The light-hearted, heavy-brained youth noticed
them no more than if they had been thistle-downs blowing
by, and kept right onward in his boisterous, thankful elo-
quence.

“T tell you, Fitz Hugh, Bob Van Leer’s your friend, from’
this time forward and forever. If there’s anything in the
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 17

world that I can do for you, just let me know what it is,
that’s all, now won’t you, old feller?”

“Very good,” said I, a little annoyed. “The first
favor I wish to ask is that you won’t crush my hands
to pieces. I may want them again, for some purpose or
other.”

“What! did I hurt you, old feller?” he exclaimed, drop-
ping my numbed fingers, and beginning to slap me violently
on the back in a paroxysm of athletic remorse. “T’ll be
hanged if I meant to, and I’m sorry, by Jove! I am. But,
you see, I didn’t know what I was about. I tell you, I’m so
glad you went in and saved her, that I feel as if I could bile
over. Come right up to my room and take a drink of
brandy; you must want it, my dear feller. My room is
close by hers, and-I want to be in it now, so as to feel as if I
was near her, you know. By Jove! I can scarcely believe
yet that she’s safe there, and not on that infernal black.
Come up, and perhaps we'll hear her talking, I love to hear
her there, of mornings ; her voice sounds so sweet, and—and
angel-like, you know; only the blasted walls are so thick that
I can’t understand a word she says.”

May you get your neck broke, you officious boor! I
thought, as I stared him in the eyes with a grimness which
made poor return for his gaze of affection. If the black
would run away with you to Patagonia, I should take it as a
favor. What do you mean by your stupid, intermeddling
gratitude? Room opposite hers, where you can hear her
voice of mornings! oh, good heavens! that is too bad.

I declined the offer of brandy, and “retreated sulkily to my
own lodgings, but could not shake off my grateful tormentor.
Catching hold of my arm, and griping it hard, as if he were a
constable and I a pickpocket, he clung to me, blundered into
my room, lit a cigar, flung himself on the lounge, and talked
uninterruptedly until I told him that it was dinner-time.
Never before had I seen him when he was able to take the
lead, or even to show in the ruck of a conversation; but
78 SEACLIFF.

his heart was fairly astride of his tongue now, and he had
more to say than I found agreeable to hear.

“T suppose, Fitz Hugh,” he ran on,—‘in fact I’ve no doubt
you are puzzled why I should be so much obliged to you for
saving Miss Mary. It isn’t for every woman that J’d thank.
you in this way,—no, no! If half the girls I’m acquainted
with should get flung, and break their bones, whalebones and
all, I wouldn’t care much. But Miss Mary, you see, is dif-
ferent to me.”

She was indeed so different, that his bass voice trembled,
and his great brown eyes filled with tears as he suddenly
turned his face from me.
~ “Yes, she’s very different,” he resumed, and then added,
after searching for a word which -could faintly express his
emotions,—¥ tremendously different. Fitz Hugh, P—Tll
tell you all about it.”

“ No, don’t,” said I, hardly knowing whether to laugh or
get angry. “Don’t make me your confidant. If you are in
love with her,—if that is what you are going to say,.—don’t
swear me to any secrecy or good faith on the subject. I may
take a fancy to fall in love with her myself.”

“ You fall in love with her!” he laughed. “She wouldn’t
have you. Why, I’ve known her ever since she was a child;
and then my cousin is married to her father. I always liked
her, even when I was a little chig—always! But I never
felt particular towards her,—not different, you understand,—
till she got grown up and wore long dresses. I tell you,
when she went to Europe, it cut into me dreadfully, and I
wanted to go along with them. But I couldn’t ; father was
alive then, and would put me through College. It took me an
awful long while to graduate, Fitz Hugh,” he parenthesized,
with a sigh of weariness at the recollection ; “it took me six
years to scuffle through, when other fellows, you know, do it
mostly in four. It almost wore me out, Fitz Hugh, and I’ve
been resting my head ever since. Well, when she came
back, full-blown and handsomer than ever, and all dressed up
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 79

in Paris rig, and speaking ever so many foreign languages,
French and what-not, a blasted sight easier than I could read
Latin with a grammar and dictionary,—when she came back
so,—as she is now,—you may believe that that put a finisher
tome. I'll be hanged if I didn’t fall in love at first sight. I
tell you, Fitz Hugh,—in confidence, you understand,—that
I’m bound up in that girl; and they all know it, every one
of them ; the old man knows it, and Mary knows it. You see,
the old man, (I mean Mary’s father,—not Westervelt, senior,
who’s as rich as Croesus,) the old man would be glad to get
both his daughters off his hands. He’s short of funds almost
always; has to shin it a good deal, they say, to get along;
and he’s borrowed a few thousands of me under extra pinches
in the money market. The fact is, he depends on me to help
him out of a speculation, now and then; and so, naturally, he
feels uncommon friendly and anxious for a closer acquaint-
ance; do you take? Well, now, Fitz Hugh—by Jove, old
feller ! here’s an idea,—suppose you take Genevieve; then,
there’s both the girls settled at once. By Jove! I never
thought of that before, but it’s a good egg. What do you
say, old boy ?”

“But it seems to me that Somerville is a favorite with
Miss Genevieve,” I replied, not anxious to commit myself to
his proposition. “I couldn’t trump such a player as he. . It
seems to me that I am out of the game.”

“ Somerville be hanged!” observed Bob. “No, he ain’t a
favorite with Genevieve, neither, and he don’t want to be. I
don’t know what he comes here for. I sometimes wish he’d
stay away, for he’s too confounded elegant and-insinuating to
please me ; but Sis (that is Henry’s wife) thinks he’s ever so
fine a feller, and will have him invited. Don’t you be afraid
of Somerville. He’s great family, I know,—tip-top aristo-
cratic ; but his father has turned him off,—cut him com-
pletely,—don’t give him a cent. He hasn’t the first solitary
red; and Westervelt couldn’t afford a poor son-in-law. Now
I’m just the sort that he can afford; for father left me and
80 SEACLIFF.

Henry a cool two hundred thousand a-piece. I an’t bragging,
Fitz Hugh, that an’t my way, 1 assure you; but I want to let
you know just how things stand.”

“Well! now, my dear man!” said I, suddenly assuming .a
serious air, which, in point of fact, well befitted my feelings,
—“do you mean to say that you are engaged to Miss Wes-
tervelt ?” .

“ Engaged !” he repeated, with an earnest, troubled stare,
as if the idea of a formal betrothal were new to. him, and at
the same time daunted him by its delicate difficulties. “Do
you mean engaged with a ring, and all that? Why, I haven’t
exactly pinned her down to it;—I haven’t kissed her, nor
anything of that sort, you know. But then—why, it’s all as
good as settled, I reckon, Fitz Hugh,” he added, brightening
up again. “Mrs. Westervelt is my cousin, and of course
agreeable; and as for the old man, I know he’s delighted at
the idea; he as much ag told me so when he borrowed the
last batch of money.”

“ Oh!” returned I, with a sigh of relief, which would have
gone far to make him throw a chair at my head, could he
have understood it. Mary had not pledged her word to this
fellow ; that I felt certain of, and that was ecstasy.

“ And so, Fitz Hugh,” concluded Bob, who had been re-
tracing the thread of his discourse to discover why he had
begun it;—“so you see what it is makes me so grateful to
you. I wish I could have saved her in your place; but, for
all that, I say again, thank you!”

“Very good,” I returned. “Much obliged to you in a
small way. Now, then, take yourself off, or I shall invite
you to eat dinner with me, and you know that you are not
fond of boiled beef and greens.”

His face shining with happy abstraction, he lounged away,
making my stairs creak despairingly under his cumbrous
descent. For a, little while I felt as if his heavy footstep
were on my heart also. The possibility that this coarse,
earthy creature might climb on his pile of filthy lucre up to
EQUESTRIAN AND EMOTIONAL. 81

my cloud-castle, break into it with the aid of Mr. Westervelt,
and make prize of the “rare and radiant maiden” whom I
had just hidden there, was altogether too terrifying to be
contemplated calmly in the seesaw repose of my rocking-
chair. I rose and walked about the room uncertainly, from
side to side, from corner to corner, very nearly as unhappy as
if I had not saved Miss Westervelt, and she had suffered
some grievous harm. Then the recollection of the rescue
intervened and swept me off into a comforting reverie, half
sentimental, half amusing. I had met a beautiful lady in
alien lands ;—I had lost her among awful mountain gleams
and thick vapors;—I had tracked her over multitudinous
billows, and found her once more ;—I had seen her flying in
extremest peril, with death following hard after;—I had
spurred a fiery steed to her succor and saved her, regardless
of my own life; and now I seemed justified before all men
in demanding her eternal love as my guerdon. This was
romance; this was what I had read of; this was what I had
often fancied. What youth old enough to wear a dress coat,
has not a hundred times, in his imagination, delivered this or
that lovely girl from the jaws of death, and then, without fur-
ther trouble, or any danger of refusal, claimed her grateful
heart, to accept or reject it as he chose? Yes, the adventure
was a realization of one of my boyish dreams, and all the
more astonishing for that very reason, because so few of those
same dazzling visions had ever been verified. It was not a
novelty in some respects, certainly: the idea was trampled
threadbare centuries ago by a crowd of poets and romancers ;
the Perseuses have been saving the Andromedas ever since
the days of the Greeks, and earlier ; the brave deserved the
fair, J doubt not, in the good old times when Cain built the
first city ; but, nevertheless, I have observed that such things
rarely happen to people of my acquaintance. I declare
frankly, though with proper shame, that Miss Westervelt is
the only lady that I ever rescued from anything like mortal

_peril. Ishall have no more such glorious exploits to boast
4x
82 SEACLIFF.

of, and I hope therefore that the reader will permit me to talk
of this at my pleasure. He may have multitudinous flocks of
such incidents in his mind or even in his history ; but I warn
him that this is my one ewe lamb, and that I shall make a
woful outery if I am robbed of it.

 
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII.

A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL.

VER since the commencement of authentic history,
iG at least, men have been pretty punctual at dinner,
whatever might be their passions and aspirations,
their joys and their sorrows. Fixed times for meals are one
proof of civilization; it is only animals, children, Hottentots,
and other savages, who eat at any and every hour of the
day ; and so, in my character as citizen of an enlightened
republic, I obeyed Ma Treat’s prandial summons, although
not hungry.
My respected foster-parents, their chubby grandchild, and
I, just filled the four sides of a small cherry table, spread now
with a clean brown linen cloth, and laden with fried fish,
boiled corned beef, boiled greens, baked potatoes, lettuce, and
dried-apple pie. Pa Treat asked a blessing in his usual
stammering style, but with an uncommon tremor of emotion.
Before long, I observed that Johnny was staring at me in
even more reverential wonder than ordinary, and that Ma
Treat’s moon-like, silver-bowed spectacles shone upon me
with an unusual effulgence of affectionate pride and interest.
“ Ah, Lewy!” said the good creature, at last, “we know
all about it, and you needn’t keep so silent and secret. I do
bless God sincerely that he spared your life, and that he gave
you strength to save that dear child’s life. Oh, Lewy! a —
horse is a vain thing for safety; Psalms, thirty-third, seven-
84 SEACLIFF.

teenth; and I’m afraid whenever I see anybody trust one;
and I do say that it’s one of the greatest mercies of
Heaven ”

Here her voice broke down and crumbled away to an in-
distinet whimper ; she drew out her handkerchief, smothered
her emotions, and wiped her spectacles.

“That’s so,” coincided Pa Treat; “not that all hosses are
quite so awful; but a runaway is the dragon.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so serious an affair as you imagine,” ob-
served I, a trifle flattered, however, at the immediate spread
of my fame. “But who was in such a hurry to tell you of
it?”

“Why, I just went up tothe great house, to show them
Trish helps of Mrs. Westervelt’s how to bake an Injun pud-
din’,” said Ma Treat. “Stupid, awkward, catholic creeturs
they are to be sure; and I wish they'd stay in their own
popish countries and worship their saints to home. But Mrs.

. Westervelt, she was down in the kitchen, and she let me
know the whole story, and she told it real handsome too,
Lewy, with her heart in her mouth. I declare I was so
scared, and proud, and glad, and grateful, I like to cried
right in the puddin’. Says I, Mrs. Westervelt, says I, I
don’t wonder at it a bit, says I, for he was the finest, hand-
somest, strongest, best-hearted baby that ever was, and it’s
just like him; yes, Mrs. Westervelt, says I, it’s just what I
should have expected of him, for I nursed him, and I know
exactly what a nater he had, says I. Mrs. Westervelt she
nodded and looked as amiable as pie, as much as to say that
she was glad to hear it. And now, furthermore, Mrs. West-
ervelt, says I, if Miss Mary don’t take a liking to him, and
say Yes just as soon as he asks the question, I say that she’s
an unnateral, ungrateful girl, not worth paying any attention
to, and ought to die an old maid, says I. Mrs. Westervelt
she smiled, and says she, I think he ought to stand a good
chance. Yes she did, Lewy; you needn’t laugh so; she said
just that, and looked as though she could say a sight more ;

 
A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL. 85

only she wouldn’t, I suppose, for fear it would seem like
courting you right out.”

“But, Ma Treat, what if you have been spoiling my
chances!” was my answer. “I fancy that young ladies dis-
like to be dictated to in love -affairs. They want their
matches made in heaven, unsuspected by their earthly fel-
low creatures, and not certainly known even to themselves
until the decisive moment. They like to move in a mysteri-
ous way, and not have the world pointing out their goal.
You will surely ruin my prospects with Miss Westervelt if
you keep on as you have begun. She won’t bear being told
that I am to win her without an effort. Depend upon it,
that, like other handsome girls, she means to be loved long
and well before she loves back. Don’t you see that you
have been setting up her pride against me?”

“Not a bit of it, Lewy,—not one bit of it, I tell you,” re-
sponded Ma Treat resolutely, but looking a little alarmed.
“No, Lewy, she ought to govern her pride, and favor you be-
cause you deserve it, without thinking any such foolish non-
sense as you've been talking of. However, I won't say
nothing more about it up there; not another word, Lewy.
You shan’t say that I go a-doing you mischief.”

Ma Treat was touched, but I did not attempt to soften her
annoyance, because I wanted to keep her well-meaning, volu-
ble tongue under bonds of discretion. For the present her
feelings found vent in lecturing Master Johnny. That hearty
youngster, moved doubtless by original sin, had already de-
voured two platefuls of greens, and being refused a third,
stuck out his under lip silently but vindictively.

“Johnny! Johnny!” said Ma Treat with exceeding glum-
ness, “ take in that under lip; pull it right in or I shall snap
it. Ob, Johnny! Johnny! how often has granma told you
to govern your temper! and Johnny don’t do it. It’s your
wicked, sinful heart, Johnny, that sticks out youflip. Asa
man thinketh in his heart, so he is; Proverbs, twenty-third,
seventh. It’s the original sin of your wicked nater; that’s
86 SEACLIFF.

the trouble, Johnny ; and not because you haven’t had greens
enough. Now eat your potato, and try to put down your
naughty heart. See! Mr. Fitz Hugh is looking at you, and,
granpa is looking at you, and granma is looking at you, and
the angels are looking at you, and they all feel sorry to see
your sinful disposition.”

Johnny slowly sucked in his rebellious lip; his eyes rose
delefully to mine, and dropped in profound humiliation ; he
swallowed his potato and his: spunk together. The one sor-
row of this healthy urchin’s life, was the excessive difficulty
of being a good boy. To attain this distinction, at least in
the estimation and according to the teachings of his grand-
mother, it was necessary to undergo labors and trials com-
pared with which a barefooted pilgrimage round the world
would have been a trifle. He must be blameless in deed,
word, and thought; eschew alike sins of commission and
sins of omission; resist the world, the flesh, and the devil;
love all Orthodox Christians, indiscriminately ; desire vehe-
mently the conversion of the heathen ; set much store by the
restoration of the Jews to Canaan; understand the prophe-
cies, and take an interest in their fulfilment; anticipate with
perpetual longing and gladness the coming of the millennium;
besides several minor duties, such as hankering after his cat-
echism, keeping Sunday, and obeying his grandparents. All
these excellent works, moreover, he was to perform, not be-
cause he liked to be obliging, not out. of any good natural
instincts, but from the most mystical and spiritual, the most
unchildlike, the most unearthly of motives. And finally,
when all was said and done, he was to get no manner of
praise for it, because he was still a miserable, detestable vic-
tim of the original sin entailed upon him by his remote
ancestor, Adam. In fact his intrinsic and necessary wicked-
ness was enforced upon him by his grandmother, with a theo-
logical rigor, and, as it were, ferocity, which appeared to
leave him small hopes of ever becoming anything better than
a perfected scapegrace. She represented him as buried
A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL. 87

under an amount of original and acquired iniquity that might
have thrown a small universe into despair; as full of every
evil imagination, capable of committing any crime, and more
than ordinarily responsible for the expulsion from Eden, the
flood and other judgments. Indeed, if Ma Treat’s words
were worth anything, Johnny’s case was entirely desperate,
both for this world and the world to come. Yet, in spite of
the fiendish wickedness which she constantly attributed to
him, Ma Treat, by some strange contradiction, was exceed-
ingly fond of Johnny; and if the fat little demon fell down
stairs, or had an indigestion, she worried and watched, and
even cried over him as if she were in peril of losing a cherub.
It was a curious commentary on her hard, literal system of
divinity, and showed that the same was believed by her head
rather than by her heart. In truth, she was a good, kindly
woman, full of natural affection and practical Christian char-
ity, notwithstanding the grim unswerving faith with which
she reasoned up to her New England puritanism,

By the way, I am inclined to think that our inclement the-
ology has some connection with our austere and intolerant
climate. If there is no spiritual sympathy, there certainly is
a picturesque similarity of effect, between our comminatory
dogmas and our savage winters, between our fervent religious
aspirations and our resplendent. and torrid summers. How
can a population be equable and moderate in its faith when
its thermometer is perpetually raging in the most radical ex-
tremes? With our rheumatic springs, no wonder that we
have been tempted to damn infants, and turn all the heathen
into hell without distinction. There is nothing, to my mind,
which so encourages one to a belief in the existence, power,
and malignity of the devil, as one of your ordinary, obstinate,
hopeless, sullen, savage, and vicious easterly rain staan of
Boston.

“Come now, don’t be hard on Johnny,” observed Pa Treat
pityingly, as he surveyed the profound humiliation of that
Lilliputian reprobate. “He an’t such a dreadful hard case;
88 SEACLIFF.

leastwise, not all the time. He only wanted a little more of

the what-d@’ye-call-it. Cherk up, Johnny ; there'll be another

dinner to-morrow.. You shan’t want for something to put in
- your thingumbob (stomach ?) ”

Pa Treat could no more call up the right word by land
than by sea; and he had all sorts of unimaginable titles for
furniture and table utensils. In his nomenclature a knife was
generally a tomahawk; a candlestick, a lightning-rod; the
sugar-bowl, the old hat; butter, goose grease, or pomatum ;
the rocking-chair, old sneezer; the mantel ornaments, jiga-
marees. The world seemed to acquire a new aspect when-
ever he spoke of its details.

. Doubtless the reader has already noticed, with proper ad-
miration, Ma Treat’s ready quotations of Scripture. Perhaps
it may seem somewhat ill-natured in me to hint that there
was a little harmless pretence in this fluent repetition of
texts, and this careful reference to chapter and verse. After
wondering for a week or so at her extraordinary memory,
which appeared to comprehend the entire Bible in all its mi-
nutize, I discovered that she used the same passages over and
over, and that most of them were drawn from the Book of
Proverbs, of which the brief, pungent antitheses stick so
easily to the mind. There was no meant deception, how-
ever; it was unconscious, harmless, and sprang from the best
intentions ; the fruit of vanity, it may be, but not of hypocrisy.

But the world does not, perhaps, care to be enlightened.
concerning the moral and social peculiarities of my foster-
parents, and, if it good-naturedly takes any interest at all in
my story, would very likely prefer to see me hurry up to the
country-house, and inquire for Miss Westervelt. Well, I
was as impatient to do this as any one could be to have me;
but the Seacliff damask was laid two hours after Ma Treat’s
brown linen; and so linger I must, no matter how weari-
somely to myself and the rest of my species. It was not
till three o’clock that I dared think that the moment had
come to venture into the Westervelt presences. Laying
A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL. 89

down In Memoriam, with which I had been preparing for a
great lyric effort in conversation, I climbed the bluff, strolled
through the thicketed garden, and entered the open front door
without ringing. It was no novelty, no liberty, this; for I
had done it repeatedly before, and by the invitation of Mrs.
Westervelt: but it led me into another adventure of unin-
tentional eavesdropping. Finding the parlor empty, I lounged
up to the copy of the Cenci, and amused myself with study-
ing out the points of resemblance between it and Genevieve.
Suddenly I heard earnest voices and hasty footsteps in the
back boudoir; it was a rush and murmur as if one person
was following and urgently imploring another ; it ended when
the door jarred open and closed again behind Somerville.
Flushed, excited, hurried, like a man escaping from reproaches
or importunities, he came in alone, muttering a curse between
his teeth, and, not seeing me, stopped by a window to wrap
up some bright object in a handful of lace. He was not so
quick but that I caught the gleam of gold and the prismatic
flash of diamonds.

What does this mean? I thought. Does my elegant friend
indulge in the eccentricity of pilfering, and rob his hosts in
the very peace and sanctity of after-dinner? That is a lady’s
bracelet, and I would swear that I heard the rustle of a
lady’s dress in the boudoir. It is not Mr. Henry Van Leer,
then, who is the hero of these mysterious bullyings ; it is our
mild and mellifiuous exemplar, Somerville. But who is the
lady ?- Mrs. Van Leer ? I will watch, and discover.

I tapped the floor with a boot-heel to warn Somerville of
my presence, but did not feel in the least bound to keep my
eyes from his face, or otherwise humor his supposed evil con-
science. If he had been guilty of any ungentility, his air, as
he turned to me, was the very apotheosis and sublimity of
impudence. He was quite able to endure my stare; he
neither started nor stammered under it; he simply nodded,
and smiled a friendly good-afternoon.

“ A broken ornament, which I am to get repaired in New
90 SEACLIFF.

York,” he added, as he dropped the valuable package into
his breast-pocket. “The ladies will be mortified to find that
you have been left alone. They are full of admiring grat-
itude for your heroism, J assure you. Mrs. Van Leer has
just had a quarrel with me because I threatened to repeat
her last compliment on Mr. Fitz Hugh. Of course, she car-
ried her point, and I had to promise secresy.”

Mrs. Van Leer! thought I. Thank you for telling me so
much. JI understand now who is the lady of the boudoir.
As for the cause of the quarrel, my friend, I fancy that you
would hardly swear for such a trifle as you mention.

“Very hard and uncharitable in Mrs. Van Leer to deny
me such a gratification,” I said, aloud. “ But where is Miss
Westervelt ? I hope she has not suffered at all from her
escapade.”

“A little more than she chose to confess at first. Good
pluck the girl has ; but nerves and pluck are separate things.
Ladies will have their faint turns, you know; and she had to
drink her camphor-water and go to bed. That is why you
were not sent for to dinner. At the risk of committing flat-
tery, I must tell you that she insisted on staying up to receive
you, and that I had to use all my authority, as the senior
gentleman of the family, to make her retire. So don’t be
surprised to hear Mrs. Van Leer call me Doctor Somerville.
I want to forestall her satire.”

By this time my mind was somewhat drawn away from
that incident of the bracelet. Iwas gratefully titillated by
the compliments which Somerville had contrived to stick into
me, while I was somewhat indignant at the jesting tone in
which he had spoken of Miss Westervelt’s faint turn, and stili
more at his exerting any domination over her, especially such
as tended to keep her out of my way. He might have acted
for the best in his interference, but it was not pleasant to
know that he dared interfere. Of course, I did not make
myself ridiculous by either looking or uttering my annoyance :
I simply twisted my moustache with a nonchalant air, and
A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL. 91

asked him if he did not think Mrs. Van Leer clever; yes, I
twisted my moustache, and surveyed myself in the glass as
if I didn’t care a straw for Mrs. Van Leer or any other
woman.

The entrance of the lady referred to prevented Somerville
from replying to my question. Within two or three minutes
thereafter, her husband and his brother, Genevieve and
Hunter made their appearances successively, while Miss
Westervelt sent excuses, thanks, and a promise to see me
to-morrow. The conversation was general and just tolerably
uninteresting. I spent some little time in furtively watching
Mrs. Van Leer and Somerville, and ‘finally left the house
none the wiser for my sidelong investigations, but followed by
a brood of harassing doubts and suspicions which vexed me
sorely in my lonely chamber.

One thing was perfectly clear, and that was that I had
made a great mistake in my brief life at Seacliff. Taking it
for an opera comique, I-had whirled round the stage dancing
and smiling like a crowned bacchanal, when all the while it
was a tragic theatre in which some grave mystery or woful
drama was evolving. Suddenly my festive garland had been
torn from my head; a word of dark, weighty significance had
been whispered in my ear; and I had become sensible of
the solemnity of the place and time.

The longer I thought of the secret understanding or mis-
understanding which evidently existed between Mrs. Van
Leer and Somerville, the more momentous it appeared,
She was just the vain, light-headed, flippant-tongued flirt
that one naturally expects to find astray, when the world’s
busy bellman, Rumor, goes about the streets crying, Lost!
As for him, he was, or at least seemed to my young eyes, a
cool, adroit, brilliant man of the world, a perfect master of
flattery, a connoisseur of the female heart, as handsomein
person as he was modish in manner, and in short, the ideal
of a woman-killer and cavalier servente. Whether his mor-
als were bad I did not know, although since the afternoon I
92 SEACLIFF.

more than suspected it. But why was he so harsh and men-
acing toward Mrs. Van Leer, or whomsoever else may have
been the weeping woman of the boudoir? What was the
meaning of that bracelet which he had torn away with vio-
lence and curses?. Would he condescend to torment a
woman by robbing her of her trinkets? Had. he quarrelled
with Mrs. Van Leer, and demanded back some pledge of
former affection? Was he jealous of this ornament because
it had been presented by another? What? Why? Who?
I went through a round of perplexing questions, and found
no satisfactory answer.

Leaving this part of my enigma, I became quite indignant
at the thought that such a questionable intrigue should exist
under the same roof with so much purity. Who should
interfere and put a stop to the painful contradiction? I was
too much of a stranger to do it; the Van Leers’ were too
leaden-headed, and Hunter too feather-brained ; the lady of
the house was too enervate; the girls were too young. I
fell back on Mr. Westervelt as the only possible champion
of the outraged, or, at least, endangered sanctity of the
family ; as master of the house, husband, father, church-
member, and social aristocrat, his was the right to sweep
away with a swift hand this spider’s nest of scandal. I re-
membered him, to be sure, as a small, frail, light-complex-
ioned, light-haired man, very neat in dress and fastidious in
manner, extremely afraid of dirt and dirty people, and pain-
fully timid in approaching porters, baggage-masters, hack-
men, and in general all hale, sanguineous, muscular person-
ages. Not by any means had he impressed me as a heroic
nature, or commanded my confidence in case of emergency,
whether physical or moral. But then he was in alien lands,
surrounded by mysterious and unreasonable police regula-
tions, bullied by his passport, and ill at ease in French.
Under the wings of the American eagle, standing on his
country’s laws, fighting for his hearth, I hoped that he would
be another creature and show himself worthy of the house-
A MOTHER IN ISRAEL, AND TWO SONS OF BELIAL. 93

hold throne. He was to come home next day, and I might
trust in his presence to turn the troublesome mystery out of
doors.
But would he discover the intrigue? Had any one but
myself appeared to discover it? This last question had not
hitherto occurred to me, and it staggered my suspicions, for if
Somerville and Mrs. Van Leer were not doubted by the
members of the family in which they lived, I might be very
wrong in doubting them: Well, I would still_be watchful,
but I would be cautious, silent, charitable. There is no more
common mark of a mean soul, no more certain index of low
instincts, if not of low breeding, than to question, on slight
grounds, the moral worth of our fellow-creatures. Besides,
the subject was a disagreeable one, and I hated to think of it
seriously.

There was still another bugbear looming in my future.
The two facts, that Mr. Westervelt needed rich sons-in-law,
and that Bob Van Leer was worth two hundred thousand
dollars, frightened me not a little when I had fairly surveyed
them in unison; they made up a very gigantic and horrible
scarecrow, which to the eyes of my imagination towered
grimly on the brow of Seacliff, and seemed to say to my
heart, as it circled longingly about the place, “ Don’t try to
light here, you vagabond!” Would Miss Westervelt marry
for money? was an impertinent question which presented
itself. I rejected that hypothesis with indignant negation,
but admitted lugubriously that she might marry to save
her father. What man in my condition of spirit would not
have wasted at least an hour in running over the list of his
effects, and speculating as to how he could double, treble,
quadruple the modest aggregate? How could I quickest
change thirty thousand dollars into two hundred thousand?
I thought of operating in stocks, of buying western lands, of
hunting up a mine, of digging for Kidd’s treasure, of begging
a government contract, of trying a lottery ticket, of importing
a cargo of Shanghae roosters. “‘Let me be quickly rich,
94 SEACLIFF.

said Ortogrul; ‘let the golden stream be swift and violent.’”
I would have been willing to go early to bed and early to
rise for the remainder of my life, if it would certainly have
made me wealthy, according to the blessed promise of the
proverb.

Finally, in my aspirations after riches, I bethought me of a
certain good genius, whom I had hitherto intended as my
guide only to fame. For the sake of a woman, that greatest
of tempters, I resolved to turn Literature into a gold-digger,
and make her slave in Demas’s filthy mine, instead of lead-
ing me through some esthetic land of Beulah toward the
shining towers of Fame’s Eternal City. In the first place,
Messrs. Bookworm and Binder should immediately, and
without any further nonsense, publish my BooK. I made
a calculation, that, if they could but sell the certainly con-
ceivable number of one hundred thousand copies, the prof-
its therefrom would go far toward. making me acceptable
to a needy father-in-law, while the literary glory would be
sure to win the daughter. I believe that many a young
fellow, who, after all, ig not particularly vain, has some such
delusion concerning the possibilities of his first book. I wrote
to Messrs. Bookworm and Binder ;—I besought them to let
me loose at once on the public ;—I exhorted them not to be
afraid of summer as a bad season for sales; in short I tried
to communicate to them some of my own enthusiasm concern-
ing myself. The publishing matter arranged, and no other
short and easy way to riches seeming to be just then open, I
went to bed immediately, and to sleep as soon as might be.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

MR. WESTERVELT.

F course I could not let the next morning pass away
without seeing Miss Westervelt. I meant to speak

warmly ; to rejoice frankly in having delivered her
from peril; to claim by some subtle word an interest in that
life which I had perhaps preserved; to attempt boldly to
read a secret in her eyes, careless whether my own revealed
one; to touch her hand with a pressure which should demand
recognition and answer. I set off for Seacliff with a brow
as elate and a step as light, as if the crown of wealth and
the wings of fame which I had proposed to win were already
mine. A few moments of lonely waiting in the parlor dis-
pelled this cheerful illusion, and made me sensible that I had
not mounted above the doubts and diffidences of ordinary hu-
manity. Presently a sweet rustle of dress,—a fragrance of
silken sound,—a descent without foot-falls,—told me that Miss
Westervelt was coming ; and my heart began to beat as if it
meant to finish its threescore years and ten in as many
minutes. .

“Mr. Fitz Hugh,—I am so obliged to you! I shall never
forget what I owe you,” she said, putting out her hand
timidly.

“You are very kind. I am glad that—that I have been
able to do you a service,” I replied, taking the soft and pliant
fingers, only to let them slide quietly away from me.

How stagnant, and frigid, and mean, often are the words
96 SEACLIFF.

that a’man utters at the very moment when his nature is
stirred most passionately. Deep down in the dungeons of
the soul, in the “black hole” of the heart, the imprisoned
emotions are wrestling and shrieking for air; but no sound
of the agony penetrates the dumb walls, and the placid, dis-
sembling jailer at the gate babbles of the news and the
weather. My face, I believe, was respectably calm, and I
am sure that what I said would not have startled the atten-
tion of a stranger. I misplaced some words: her eyes drop-
ped as she gently answered ; and that was all there was of
visible emotion. How often it happens thus! The moment
of moments,—the moment that of all we most longed for and
cherished in anticipation,—it arrives at last, and we are so
paralyzed that we cannot stretch out our hands to improve it.
The carrier-dove of opportunity appears in the distance ; it
circles over our heads and alights with soft-flutter of loving
wings on our shoulders; it rises into the clouds again, and
we have neither secured its message nor charged it with an
answer.

How differently from me would Somerville have behaved
and talked, and how differently he did talk when he entered
the room five minutes after Miss Westervelt! I was a mere
militiaman, awkward in manoeuvre, and subject to panics,
compared with this disciplined mercenary of society, drilled
from childhood in ithe manual exercise of politeness, proof
against every surprise, master of every feint and stratagem.
Blandly and dulcetly he prated away the time until the whole
family had gathered in the parlor. Humbled at my inferi-
ority, and vexed that'I had let slip my golden chance, I was
more silent than usual, notwithstanding that Mrs. Van Leer
seated herself by me and opened a coquettish chatter which
should have been enough to win small-talk from a fossil ich-
thyosaurus.

“Mary!” she called, at last, “Mr. Fitz Hugh is mel-
ancholy this morning. He thinks that he hasn’t been fairly
rewarded, I sup—pose; and he is quite right. You haven't
MR. WESTERVELT. 97

done anything that young ladies in novels usually do to their
preser—vers. Get the pic—ture now; let him see what is
coming.”

“You naughty creature!” says the blushing Mary. “I
told you not to speak of that till it was done, and not even
then. That was my right.”

“Well, go and get it now,” returned Mrs. Van. “I have
spoilt your sur—prise, you see, and there is no use in keeping
half a secret.”

Miss Westervelt left the room for a moment, and returned
with a drawing-book, from which she produced, with the
usual maidenly flutterings, a crayon sketch, spirited though
unfinished, representing our runaway adventure. The mo-
ment chosen was the very crisis of the rescue; both horses
rearing magnificently ; the black foaming in the background ;
the bay on the near side, half a length behind; the lady
bending forward as if shaken in her seat by the sudden
check of speed; the champion clutching the broken rein with
a sublime indifference to his equilibrium. The picture was
not yet half completed, but enough was done to show a re-
spectable talent at composition, and the animals, in particular,
were remarkably lifelike and vigorous.

“Tt is beautiful,—it is wonderful!” I exclaimed, with an
earnestness of gratification which brought a burst of laughter
from Mrs. Van Leer. “But really it ¢s well done,” I as-
serted, reddening consciously. “The horses are perfect.
Why, Miss Westervelt, you will make Rosa Bonheur shake
in her horseshoes.”

“Ab! you suspected me,—you have found me out,” she
said. “The horses I could not do; and so I copied them,
separately, out of some engravings that I will show you.
But I did the grouping, and you shall see whether I can
finish the human figures. I like drawing, and I faintly hope
to design something original yet.”

“No doubt you will; you are naturally a designing crea-

ture, Mary,” observed Mrs. Van Leer.
5
98 SEACLIFF.

“ All women are,” said her husband, and laughed tremen-
dously at what he considered his joke.

Coloring a little, perhaps at Mrs. Van Leer’s accusation,
perhaps at my immense interest in the little picture, Miss
Westervelt went to a window and fell to sketching indus-
triously. I took my stand beside her, as might reasonably
have been expected; for was not the drawing mine, and was
- not my portrait needed to its completeness? The white, plump
hand, bold in touch, and flexile in movement, brooded over
and quickened into warmer life its creations. It is a rare lux-
ury, I imagine, that of seeing one’s own likeness wrought out
by the fingers that in all the world one holds the dearest;
and I enjoyed something more than this even, for I dis-
covered that Miss Westervelt could hit off my profile with-
out glancing at me, as if transferring it from memory. Of
course she flattered it, and of course I thanked her in my
soul. But the devil is a malicious creature, ever anxious,
they say, to disturb anything which reminds him of heaven;
and he presently stirred up Mrs. Van Leer to throw her
shadow and Somerville’s over my enjoyment. Passing her
arm through his in a pert, familiar way, which was particu-
larly, offensive when associated with my suspicions of her,
she drew him to my side, obliging me to give her place, and
watched with a knowing smile the process of filling in my
portrait.

“Excellent!” said she. “Mr. Fitz Hugh’s moustache to
a hair; only the expression should be a little more worried ;
ter—rible anxiety for the la—dy, you know. But really,
Mary, you must let Mr. Somerville sketch your face. He
has a par—ticular talent for taking ladies. I mean taking
their likenesses, of course; nothing else. He has done my
face and Mrs. Westervelt’s to per—fection. Come, cousin,
let him try his hand on you, that’s a dear girl.”

“Not a stroke of it,” replied J, positively. “I beg your
pardon for the contradiction, Mrs. Van Leer; but every
line of the drawing must be done by Miss Westervelt, or I
refuse it.”
MR. WESTERVELT. 99

“You see how unreasonable he is,” said my artist, with a
little laugh, which I thought indicated gratification.

“ Well, I nev—er would permit a man to dictate in that
style,” observed Mrs. Van Leer, half piqued, half jesting.
“ You must not al—low it, Mary; it is encouraging the ugly
sex in bad man—ners. Now, Mr. Somerville has been better
taught; he is meekly, and to the smallest fragment of him,
under my thumb ; and to prove it he is going now to flirt in
the library, quite away from Mr. Fitz Hugh’s naughty ex-
ample.” , 5

Oh, you brazen, affected, drawling flirt! I thought. I
wish that your husband had sense enough to keep an eye
on you. I wish that Mr. Westervelt would arrive and put a
stop to this shameless trifling.

Just then the doorbell rang, and Genevieve ran to the
front of the parlor, crying, “Papa! papa!”

Mr. Westervelt stood in the verandah, tapping on a window
with his umbrella, and smiling at us through the plate-glass.
Mary sprang from her seat, and flew into the hall to give
him entrance. He came in presently, his arm around her
waist, kissing her very fondly and calling her pet names,
while’she held up her: drawing before his face, saying, “ See
there, papa; see what has happened to me.”

“What is that, my child?” he asked, but immediately
pushed it away to embrace Genevieve. Mrs. Westervelt
had started up at sight of him, but had not advanced, and
stood awaiting him with a strange air of hesitation, which
was perfectly manifest, although of course, incomprehensible
to me, who knew so little of his conjugal character. He did
not notice it; seemed very glad to see her; kissed her and
called her his dear Ellen. Her eye followed him with ill-
concealed-anxiety, until his gaze rested on the calm, smiling,
handsome countenance of Somerville. She, too, has guessed
the dark secret, I thought; she knows that she ought not to
have let that wolf into the fold; she expects blame for her
unfaithful watch and ward.
100 * SEACLIFF.

“ How do you do, Mr. Westervelt ?” said the wolf, coming
forward and shaking the hand of the family chief with such
a mien of respect, that it was like incense. “I have an
impertinent air of welcoming you to your own house, sir.
You will excuse it?”

“Certainly, certainly. You are very welcome. I hope
you have been made comfortable, sir,” murmured Mr.
Westervelt, in a hesitating, troubled tone, as if half choked
by the civilities which he felt compelled to utter.

I was now introduced to him, in form; for he seemed not
to remember me.

“Oh!” said he,—“ Mr. Fitz Hugh,—yes, we parted some-
where in—in Switzerland, I believe. Yes, yes, I remember
now, perfectly. Excuse me for not recollecting you at once ;
—I am a little short-sighted. I hope that you have—have
been very well, sir.”

My health during the very considerable space of time
since our last meeting, had been excellent; and I told him
so, with thanks for his inquiry, although I suspected that he
set small store by the information. “I am glad,” he rejoined,
bowing, “ very glad to—to welcome you to my house, sir.”

“Thank you, sir. I have the pleasure of lodging near
you, with your neighbour, Mr. Treat,” I replied, anxious to
be received on my proper footing, and not as an intruder.

“Oh, you are not staying in the house? Well, we shall
always be most happy to have you call, Mr.—Mr. Fitz
Hugh.”

He now turned cordially to the Van Leers, addressing
Robert, especially, with a warmth so almost paternal, that it
annoyed me exceedingly. The salutations over, he begged to
be excused, and went off to wash away the dust of his jour-
ney. I had studied him well, and felt disheartened: he was
clearly, not the man for my imagined exigency; no match
for Somerville, and hardly for Mrs. Van Leer. Since I left
him shivering amidst the misty morning glories of the Righi,
he had altered little, but altered for the worse, that is for-the
MR. WESTERVELT. 101

weaker. He looked thinner, and frailer in body, more
worn, more worried, more timorous in spirit, more incapable
than ever of energetic resolve or execution. His dress, even
taking into consideration-a railroad trip of two hours, seemed
careless ; his thin, blonde faintly-silvered hair, hung in a dis-
order unknown of old even to diligences and glaciers; and,
altogether, that halo of spruceness, which marked him in the
earlier days of his second marriage, had faded sadly in glory.
His tones had softened beyond their former hesitating soft-
ness; his mild eye rarely rose to your face, when he ad-
dressed you; or, if by chance it met yours, it dropped
hastily.

He returned presently, followed by his daughters, who had
‘run out to wait on him. Mrs. Van Leer, still keeping Som-
erville’s arm, was promenading the parlor with a semi-polking
step, and talking nonsense. Her husband and his brother
occupied separate window-seats, whence they could stare at
the Sound, and so enliven their heavy minds with the white
sails which brightened and darkened as they tacked across
its tremulous expanse. Miss Westervelt resumed her
sketch, and Genevieve her embroidery. Mr. Westervelt
seated himself on a sofa beside his wife, fidgeting there like
@ nervous visitor, and occasionally casting glances of timid
inquiry at the passing and repassing Somerville. As for
me, I had been captured by Mr. Hunter, who made me ‘sail
down the meandering frothy current of one of his tedious
stories about himself; but in spite of his interminable stream
of babble, and in spite of my efforts not to listen to what
was not intended for my ears, I overheard the general
purport of Mr. Westervelt’s conversation. It consisted of
sighing complaints concerning the hard times and the un-
profitableness of business.

“But everybody else says that it is good times, papa, and
that business is lively,” observed Genevieve.

“Lively!” he returned with a groan. “It is lively, just
as a cheese is lively when it is full of nibbling mice. The
102 SEACLIFF.

stock gamblers and swindlers are lively, Jenny, and real
honest business is suffering. Almost everybody that I can
hear of,—almost everybody, I tell you,—has been making
losses,—making losses in private. that never get into the
papers,—things that you don’t hear of, Jenny. If the slight-
est pressure should come, multitudes of men would collapse
who are supposed to be as sound and solid as granite. Peo-
ple are doing a great deal,—frightful amount of business,—
but it is mostly out of pocket. It is perfectly astonishing
how many houses I know of that are only keeping along,—
preserving splendid appearances and keeping along,— that is
all.” :

When a man has the dropsy, or the rheumatism, or the
bronchitis, or the dyspepsia, it is incredible how many people
he finds who are afflicted like unto himself; while his robust
neighbor, whose juices are healthy, bones painless, throat
sound, and digestion uniformly triumphant, is hardly aware
that there is an invalid in all his acquaintance. Mr. Wester-
velt’s ill-luck in business was a chronic affair, which led him
into a wide sympathetic knowledge of other cases of financial
decrepitude. Misery not only loves company, but usually
finds plenty of it.

“But the papers say that there is plenty of money,” per-
sisted Genevieve. “I should think you must finally pick
up some of it, papa, looking about as sharp as you do. I
suppose that when a man has plenty of money he has good
times.”

“Ah! there is too much of it,’ he moaned. “Too much
of it. Everything is inflated; everything is too high; the
cost of living is frightful. I wish that you,—that you women
could ever realize how much it takes to dress you. But that
as what you never can be got to think of.”

“ But, papa, one bad speculation costs you more than all
our dresses for all our lives,” retorted Genevieve, with her
accustomed acuteness. “ What makes you speculate, papa?”

“You don’t know what you are talking about, child,” said
MR. WESTERVELT. 103

he, evidently bothered by the question. -“ Well, well, let’s
have done with the subject; let’s have done with it.”

Mr. Westervelt, like the majority of my respected fellow
countrymen, was business-bitten. During the early part of
my sojourn at Seacliff, money matters were the only things
on which he could talk fluently and earnestly. Say, “ Stocks,”
in his hearing, and he turned upon you as full of excitement
as a dog when you say, “S’t-boy.” ager to get rich, eager
to become independent of a father who bullied him, he had
plunged into the sea of exchange gambling, without the cool-
ness necessary to take advantage of its onsets, or the san-
guine temperament fitted to bear its reverses. Whether
lucky or unlucky, he was always low-spirited, and generally
looked as if he had eight or ten notes out, lying among his
bank accounts, like lighted bombshells in a magazine, and
sure to blow him to atoms the moment their brief fuses were
consumed.

In this matter of melancholy he was well paired with his
wife, who often bore about a joyless look, which was not so
much downright sorrow as disheartenment .and calm weari-
ness. Somewhere in her life, there seemed to be a dreary
ache, of which she herself, perhaps, could not have explained
the cause. It might have been the slow, dull oppression of
delicate health, or-it might have been the empty sadness
which overtakes all frivolous natures when the first flush of
youth leaves them and they are removed from their accus-
tomed scenes of social gayety. This depressed air gave her
a fitful interest in my eyes, although I felt all the while that
she was not worth a moment’s serious study.. Sometimes the

aveil lifted, and she was chatty, frolicsome, almost boisterous,

for a day or two together ; then, without any apparent cause,
it would redescend, silencing her puerile mirth, and draping
her brow once more with its gauzy, deceptive romance. —

Presently Mr. Westervelt lifted his eyes to his eldest
daughter, and asked languidly, “What are you drawing
there, Mary?”
104 SEACLIFF.

She put the sketch in his lap and laughed out blushingly,
“Who are they, papa?”

“Why, the young lady,—let me see,—looks like—why,
I should say she looks a little like you. And the other,—
the gentleman ;—well, Mary, who is the gentleman, and
what does the picture mean?”

“Between Mary and Genevieve the story was at length
narrated. Mr. Westervelt rose, approached me and shook
both my hands with an excitement of manner which con-
trasted strongly with his ordinary languor. “I thank you,
sir,” said he. “I thank you with all my heart for saving my
child’s life. I am ashamed, sir, that I have suffered you to
remain here so long without expressing my gratitude to you.
But, you see, I did not know of this, sir ;—I did not know .
how indebted I was to you ;—I beg to offer you my excuses
and my warmest thanks. I am heartily glad to see you
under my—but stop—I—it seems to me that you said you
were stopping at my neighbor’s® How is that, Mrs. Wester-
velt? My dear sir, you must come directly to our house,
and let us see to your comfort.”

“ Ah, papa, papa!” broke in Genevieve, laughing ; “the
house is full; there isn’t a room. It is too bad, but there
isn’t even a closet.”

“Oh—ah—no room,” he stammered. “That is very un-
fortunate. I am sorry, sir, on my own account ; exceedingly
mortified.”

“ Don’t think of it, I beg of you, sir,” said I, stammering
as much as himself; for I was surprised, proud, and happy,
to hear him express so much gratitude. “Iam exceedingly
comfortable,—perfectly well off with Mr. Treat.”

“With your Pa,* interposed Mary ; and then that story
had to be told.

“Well, it is remarkably interesting—quite a romantic
incident,” observed Mr. Westervelt. “Old foster-parents ;
that reminds me of Irish novels ; very interesting, indeed.—
But our house, by the way, 4,don’t see how it can be full.
MR. WESTERVELT. 105

Oh! I comprehend,” he added, glancing at Somerville.
After a moment’s hesitation, during which he looked par-
ticularly flurried and low-spirited, he addressed his wife in a
whisper. “ My dear, how comes he—how comes Mr. Somer-
ville to be here?”

“Why, he is visiting us, papa,” put in Genevieve suddenly,
and almost tartly.

Mrs. Westervelt moved her lips, but made no reply that
was audible, at least to me.

Mary bent lower over the drawing, and continued to work
in silence.

«“ Ah—yes,” sighed the husband and father, and let his
head fall back languidly, with the air of a man who has been
only half answered but dares not insist upon his inquiries. I
felt actually angry with him as I noted his irresolute hands
playing over and over each other, and his faded blue eyes
wandering out of the window, as if seeking to avoid any pos-
sible cause of conflict within. If he wishes to prosecute the
subject, why doesn’t he? I thought. How can he, the master
of the house, the head of the family, permit himself to be so
disconcerted and checked by a spunky little slip of a youngest
daughter? His home might become a nest of Lotharios and
blacklegs, for all such a guardian as he.

This was not my first discovery, it will be sacanitiond:
that the beautiful Miss Genevieve had more spirit than was
absolutely necessary to keep her sweet. Loving and lovable
to her friends as long as they pleased her, the moment they
contradicted her fancies, she could fly at them, be it sister or
father, like a little tigress. At times she confessed,-with de-
lightful frankness, to having a high temper ; but, like many
other people similarly blessed, she rather thought it a con-
venient thing to have ; and even, when not using it, she often
kept it in sight and in terrorem, like a bully’s bowie-knife
peeping from his bosom.

Annoyed beyond measure at the upshot of, the conversa-

tion, I paid my compliments and retired. Hurrying through
5*
106 SEACLIFF.

one of the thickest shrubbery walks of the garden, I came
across Mrs. Van Leer, leaning on Somerville’s arm, and lis-
tening to his talk with a downcast eye of mock timidity. She
colored slightly, but otherwise concealed all feeling under a
smile of heroic impudence, while her companion was.as calm,
pensive, majestically innocent in air, as Plato might have been
when he talked his platonic love nonsense to some Aspasia of
his time under the shades of Academus. As I passed them,
he touched my arm, and pointed smilingly through the ever-
greens. Following the line of his white forefinger, I saw Mr.
Westervelt on the edge of the bluff, holding Robert Van
Leer by the arm, and conversing with an earnestness which
smacked of notes to meet and loans to make.

“Sanguinary, isn’t it?” whispered Somerville. “Our

robust young friend is being bled for funds. Westervelt, has
spent all his cash in western lands, and is undoubtedly hard
up.”
If he meant to divert my thoughts from himself and Mrs.
Van Leer, he had accomplished his design. Of course,
thought I dolorously, Robert must have something for his
money ; and of course he will never get anything nor ask for
anything but Miss Westervelt. I felt as if I had been bled
myself, not figuratively, but physically, and to a most weak-
ening extent, as I turned away and marched toward my
boarding-place.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX.
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.

ALKING up and down the beach in front of Pa
Treat’s, next morning, I writhed through a torment-
ing meditation on the character and circumstances of

Mr. Westervelt. How unlucky, that of all the fathers of
families in the United States, this particular one, with his
empty exchequer, and woman heart, and baby muscles,
should have fallen to the lot of the imperilled household of
Seacliff! He needed wealth to keep him from under the pe-
cuniary thumb of Robert Van Leer; he needed courage to
render him a match for the cool, resolute, “ interesting vil-
lain,’ Somerville ; and here he was, poor in pocket and poor
in spirit, a most inadequate and unsatisfactory domestic hero
indeed. A voice at my back, young and impudent as the
abrupt scream of a child’s whistle, startled me from the
thorny revery in which I was wandering.

“ This is the prince of summer mornings, my dear fellow,”
crowed the debonair Hunter, skipping down the green bank
behind me and clapping a patronizing hand on my shoulder,
with the air of one who expounds the universe to some dull-
eyed brother.

Here is the man whom IJ can profitably question about Mr.
Westervelt, I reflected ; here is the man who will tell me the
truth, the whole truth, and, alas! a good deal more than the
truth.

“ Good morning, Mr. Hunter,” I said. “I have been tak-
108 SEACLIFF.

ing peeps at Seacliff from various points on the beach. I
can’t say that I admire the house ;—I candidly admit that the
house is not to my taste; but, on the whole, your friend Mr.
Westervelt has a beautiful place.”

“My dear sir, I passionately wish it were Mr. Wester-
velt’s,” he replied, lifting his small head so as to look the
house in the face, and flinging out his hand toward it with as
much grandeur of action as if he were a magician, creating
enchanted palaces. “Mr. Fitz Hugh, if there is any one
thing on earth which pains and irritates me more than an-
other, it is to see a man, sir, a lord of creation, ripe in years
and experience, the sire, perhaps, of lovely daughters, at the
mercy of his wife for the roof under which he shelters his
head. That house, garden, verdant bluff, everything, belongs
to Mrs. Westervelt. Mr. Westervelt cannot touch it to ob-
tain bread for his lips or save his limbs from prison. It must
be a mortifying reflection to him. My dear sir, I am not
independently rich, but I have an independent spirit; and I
do say that I would never, no matter how provoked and
solicited, place myself in the position of my noble-hearted
and sensitive friend, Mr. Westervelt ; never would accept a
penny from a woman which I could not repay on demand.”

He dropped his hand and watched my admiring counte-
nance with calm satisfaction. I knew that it was unneces-
sary to set him agoing again with questions, for, once tapped
on a subject, it flew like new ale, and he ran freely, efferves-
cently, down to the very emptyings. After enjoying the effect
of his magnanimous declaration for a moment, he proceeded.

“Yes, sir, Mrs. Westervelt is proprietor of Seacliff. Her
husband, too gengrous and grandly-natured for a man of busi-
ness, seldom keeps a place of his own for more than a year
or two. What a situation, Mr. Fitz Hugh! His wife owns
Seacliff, and his children’ are supported by a cold and unsym-
pathizing grandfather. Of course you have heard of Wester-
velt, senior,—Westervelt, senior, of 800 South Street,—
Westervelt, senior, the millionaire. He has made at least
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 109

five millions in the China trade, and has dispensed to his only
son the miserable pittance of perhaps one hundred thousand
dollars, in several remittances, all of which has been suc-
cessively swallowed up by pecuniary reverses. Westervellt,
senior, still wraps himself in his five millions, and looks on
frigidly while Westervelt, junior, struggles with his circum-
stances.”

#le paused again, turned half round and fixed his shiny
black eyes on my face to see whether I appreciated his anti-
thesis.

Mr. Frederick William Hunter, as I ought to have stated
long ago, was an under-graduate of the University of North
America, a junior, by the rules of college, but an unchangea-
ble and lifelong sophomore by the dispensations of Providence.
Some men are born sophomores; remain sophomores until
death, in spite of sheepskins and every other human circum-
stance; perhaps go into the next world and exist through the
intermediate state as sophomores. He was a wise fool in
the profoundest and truest sense of the compound. His
memory was remarkable; he committed with enviable facility ;
he could spout long passages of Greek and Latin hexameter ;
he was equally familiar with the poetry of his own language ;
he wrote fluently, and was the most copious orator of his
society debating-club ; but in spite of all these things, he was
incurably and inevitably ridiculous. In short, he was one of
those remarkable persons who are undeniable fools, without
being exactly underwitted. He had no prudence, no common
sense, and no modesty, except the mock species. His lying
was so brazen and barefaced, so extravagant, unnecessary,
and purposeless, that it would have been disgusting, had it
not been done with a certain curious taste and artistic feeling.
Is there not, for instance, something graceful and esthetic in
the account which he gave me of the troubles of Mr. Wes-
tervelt? What sublimity of eulogium, what tenderness of
sympathy! ‘Yet there was nothing in it, for at other times
he made sport of the poor gentleman’s situation, grinning at
110 SEACLIBF.

his sorrows, and pointing an ironical finger at his weaknesses.
But just now it tickled his whim to be the pathetic orator ;
and his whim was his god, which he worshipped and obeyed
reverently. On the whole, his conversation had a high de-
gree of personality, picturesqueness, and interest. There was
one particularly good thing in it, and that was, that he
sunk the student as much as he possibly could, in the man of
the world, rarely troubling us with college songs and intme-
morial anecdotes, and only recurring to such words as rush-
ing, flunking, fizzling,in his moments of supreme excitement.

Just now Mr. Hunter was suffering a temporary ostracism
from the university, in consequence of having entered a tutor’s
room clandestinely, and demonstrated his delicate humour by
breaking the furniture. The college police had surprised him;
single-handed he had dispersed the official mercenaries;
but in their precipitate flight they had contrived to drag him
before the Faculty. As it was not his first offence, nor thought
likely to be his last, unless something was done to moderate
his wit, and as, furthermore, he had already been rusticated
without much apparent benefit, he was this time punished
with downright dismissal, only softened by a hint at future
reinstatement in case of suitable reformation and humiliation.
Accordingly he was continuing his class studies, nominally, at
Rockford, but actually at Seacliff. ;

I nodded with an air of entranced comprehension to his
last sentence, and he resumed the history. “Iam informed,
on the best of authority, that Westervelt, senior, considers
his son an imbecile in money matters, and only grants him an
annual allowance of three thousand dollars, which is strictly
dedicated to the support of the family. Whenever I write a
novel, Mr. Fitz Hugh, I shall introduce a portrait, somewhat
satirical, you understand, of this Westervelt, senior. He is
a most curious, whimsical, prejudiced, opinionated old covey,
as dry and withered and bitter as snakeroot. Among his
other singularities he has taken a violent dislike to me, for no
reason, that J can imagine, except that I once drove by his
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 111

aristocratic carriage on the Bloomingdale road with a common
livery-stable pacer. I looked back and politely lifted my hat
to him in apology ; but the old gentleman’s bile was stirred,
and he totally refused to recognize me ; indeed, he had had
the insolence to cut me once or twice before. Since that time
the breach has been past healing ;—I never call on him in
New York, and he never comes to Seacliff. As for his
granddaughters, they make him one stiff visit annually, when
he lectures them furiously on economy, and sends them off
with two hundred and fifty dollars a-piece to buy new drgsses.
I don’t think he exactly hates them, but he doesn’t care to be
troubled with them. The fact is, they are women ; and Wes-
tervelt, junior, he says, is another woman ; and women, in his
opinion, are bores ; an opinion, Mr. Fitz Hugh, with which I
am sometimes tempted to coincide. I have had a great deal
of trouble with the fair sex in my time. You have no idea
how frantic the city girls are after us North America fellows.”

While Hunter poured forth his little stream of informa-
tion, foaming, so to speak, with conceited grimaces and ges-
tures, I subsided rapidly into a low condition of spirits. Miss
Westervelt, then, was grandchild of Westervelt, senior, of
South Street; was heiress, more or less apparent, to a con-
siderable share in an estate of four or five millions ; was, in
short, so throned on golden expectations as to be entirely out
of reach to an undistinguished, semi-indigent person like my-
self. To conceal my distress I remarked gayly, “ He must
be a tremendous character, this Westervelt, senior. When-
ever I pass through South Street again, I shall try to peep
into his den and get a view of the old tiger.”
- “Somerville goes to New York to-day,” said Hunter.
“ Somerville would be delighted to present you to him; or
perhaps I had better give you a letter of introduction; in fact
I will do so, I insist upon it.”

He had forgotten what he had told me five minutes before
about the cessation of intercourse between himself and Wes-
tervelt, senior. He often lost track of his own stories thus,
112 SEACLIBE.

this short-sighted Hunter. The real state of the case was, as
I learned long afterwards, that he had never been acquainted
at all with Westervelt, senior, who would have nothing to do
with the Van Leers or their kindred.

“Is Somerville off?” I asked eagerly. “ Why—how—
what sends him away?”

“Mr. Fitz Hugh, I beg your confidence,” said he, with an
impressive wave of that significant right hand, and a circular
glance of caution which swept the horizon. “You are a man
of the world, like myself; a word to the wise is sufficient :
secrecy!! My friend Mr. Somerville, for whom I have the
highest, the profoundest respect and admiration, is a man of
fascinating manners, accomplishments, and social powers, who
has the misfortune to be irresistibly attractive to women, and
is therefore the terror of suspicious husbands and fathers.
My friend Mr. Westervelt indulges in the one solitary weak-
ness of dreading lis influence. Westervelt, senior, hates
him ; has forbidden his own house to him; has requested
that he shall not be invited to Seacliff’ [And yet Somerville
was to present me to this Westervelt, senior.] You may
well suppose that the knowledge of these facts grates on the
susceptibility of a man so delicate and courteous in soul as
Somerville. He sees that the politeness of the master of the
house is constrained, that there is no heart in it; and he
leaves. For my part, if I were Mr. Westervelt, I would
scorn these miserable doubts and suspicions. They are a.
reflection, as unnecessary as undeserved, on his wife and
daughters, Mr. Fitz Hugh.” 7

You poor fool! I thought. Can’t you see that he is simply
looking to the safety of your own feather-brained sister ?

I had learned a great deal from Mr. Hunter, though, to be-
sure, I could not exactly decide what was wheat in his nar-
rative, and what was chaff, inasmuch as he invariably related
the true and the false with the same fluency, the same pic
turesqueness of circumstance, the same animation of voice’
and gesture. He was the most unfathomable liar that I ever
A VOYAGE, OF DISCOVERY. 113

saw, for the reason, perhaps, that in the moment of invention
he actually believed what he said, or, at least, felt a sensation
delusively similar to belief. His very heart went out in his
fibs, and experienced an emotion of pride and gratitude when
they were well received.

I resolved to walk up to Seacliff and see for myself
whether Somerville was really about to leave. For once,
possibly in a fit of absence of mind, Hunter had told the
truth; our elegant friend, dressed in travelling attire of
English plaid, was suavely, smilingly, but with a mild mel-
ancholy in his Grecian countenance, bidding farewell to the
ladies. Mrs. Van Leer expressed her regret at his depar-
ture with a brazen liberty of speech which amazed and dis-
gusted me. Mr. and Mrs. Westervelt were embarrassed,
and at a loss for remarks, wandering up and down with that
look which people have when they feel themselves at liberty
to say anything but what they feel. Mary was reserved ;
Genevieve silent also, but sullen; the Van Leer men as in-
expressive as usual.

A sudden fancy seized me to go to New York with Somer-
ville and learn something positive concerning his habits and
character. When I proposed to be his companion down, he
welcomed the offer with a warmth of manner, which, in itself,
without a single compliment, conveyed the impression that he
was not only delighted, but surprised and positively grateful,
as if I had accorded to him some especial favor and honor.
It is so easy for an elegant veteran of the world to flatter a
young fellow, without even taking the trouble to lie !

In those my migratory days I always kept a carpet-bag
ready packed for short trips, and thus I was able to present
myself fully equipped in five minutes. Robert Van Leer
drove us in the double carriage of the family to the Rockford
station. Robert was in good spirits, which, indeed, was com-
monly the case with him when he had eaten well and the
weather was fine, for he had Bitong sympathies with the
physical creation.
114 SEACLIFF.

“T say, Fitz Hugh, old feller, come back in a hurry now,”
he roared at me over his shoulder. “ Don’t you stay more
‘na couple of days now. We shall miss you like thunder.
Genevieve ‘Il miss you particular, haw haw haw. I say,
Somerville, I’ve got a plan for Fitz Hugh; he’s got to marry
Genevieve the very day I marry Mary. An’t that a good
idea, eh ?”

“Too young, Robert,” said I, coolly, although disturbed.
“A girl of seventeen isn’t old enough to be married.”

-“ Genevieve an’t old enough!” exclaimed Bob, contempt-
uously. “ An’t she, though! An’t she, Somerville? What
was that you said the other day about women being like
potatoes ?”

“Don’t recollect. You are thinking of Hunter, perhaps,”
observed Somerville.

“No, I an’t thinking of Hunter; it was you,” insisted Bob.
“You said women were like potatoes;—old enough when
they were big enough.”

The coarse blockhead roared. with delight over the com-
parison, never, suspecting that it was an absolute insult to
Genevieve. All the way to Rockford he continued to bab-
ble about the two marriages; but interesting as the subject
was to me, I did not find his remarks worth remembering.

The New Haven train soon screamed down upon us, and
halted with the usual snorting and shuffling to receive pas-
sengers.

“Good bye! good luck, old boys!” shouted Robert ; and,
tumbling into the baggage-car, we were off.

Let us rejoice that there exists in this world, not every-
where indeed, but in some extra-civilized countries, that
free-and-easy institution, that ambulatory club-room, the
smoking-car. There you can enjoy one of the greatest and
cheapest of luxuries ; there, too, you can get rid of those dis-
agreeable people who don’t smoke. But in this wonderful
land of ours, the brag of all creation, such a thing as a
smoking-car is nearly unknown; and in consequence a trav-
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 115

eller whose time weighs heavy on his brain, and who is
dying for his customary Havana, must generally resort to
the baggage-car: a gloomy, contracted pen, almost window-
less, where he has nothing to sit on but a hat-box, and where
he is sure to be smashed flat in case of a collision: a pen,
too, which an inhospitable placard forbids to him, and from
which he is liable to be excommunicated by the conductor,
on suspicion that he is a mail-robber or a trunk-picker.
Somerville and I were both smoking, and hence the baggage-
car. Seating ourselves on a sailor’s grimy sea-chest, Somer-
ville talked of Paris, Florence, Greece, and Constantinople,
while I meditated my objects in leaving Seacliff. In the first
place I meant to stick close to my friend and inveigle his
secrets from him by artful conversation ; to track his doubles
in New York, ascertain his haunts, and take note of his com-
panions ; in short, to learn his character and his possibilities
for evil. In the second place, I proposed to make the ac-
quaintance of Westervelt, senior, by whatever unforeseen
means might present itself; with some dim, vague, unlikely,
stupid intention of giving him a hint concerning the mystery
of Seacliff; with some hope-also, that I should engage him
in the task of barring the demon from my paradise.

Accident favored me at first, and I made a suspicious dis-
covery. Drawing out his handkerchief suddenly to intercept
a, sneeze, Somerville jerked from his breast pocket a little
chinking package. As it fell against my pantaloons, slipped
down between my feet and unfolded there, I naturally picked
it up for him, and could not avoid seeing that it was a lady’s
watch, costly in make and furnished with a heavy chain, at
the end of which dangled some jewelled trinkets.

“Doubly obliged,” said he, coolly wrapping up the ex-
pensive trifle in the scrap of newspaper from which it had
dislodged, and restoring it to his pocket. “I think your
pants saved it from smashing. I should have been annoyed
to see it injured. It was handed to me to get it cleaned.”

“ You seem to be the patron saint of damaged gimcracks,”
116 SEACLIFF.

said I.. “They all come to you to get healed of their frae-
tures and maladies. I saw you in possession of a lady's
bracelet the other day.”

“I am a jeweller’s man, you see. I have benefited the
trade largely in my time; and I know where to get a thing
done well and quickly.” .

“And you are quite skilful too, I suppose, in getting a
cracked reputation mended,” I observed, pushing on my
cross-examination.

“ Really, I never tried;—I keep clear of those reputa-
tions,” he said, bursting into a laugh in spite of an evident
effort to check himself. Whether he was amused at the
clumsy cunning of my remark, or at the immense hypocrisy
of his own answer, he very naturally did not explain, nor I
demand an explanation. I simply saw, what I had half
noticed before, that his laugh was peculiar and disagreeable.
It lifted the middle of his upper lip and exposed two long
white teeth which gleamed beneath the black moustache in a
manner that reminded me of snakes, alligators, and such like
slimy, dangerous creatures. Perhaps he knew that it was an
unpleasant laugh to look upon, for he generally smiled his
merriment quietly, and in a very gracious, becoming fashion.

“You are wise,” I observed. “It shows both charity and
good sense to let the poor broken trifles alone.”

I had been a little alarmed by his laugh, and a little posal,
by his affectation of virtue. I did not wish to have him think’
me either silly or vulgar ; for a young man generally craves
the respect of older persons, even of those whom he dislikes ;.
and I had a particular regard for Somerville’s unquestionable
cleverness and knowledge of society. :

“T quite agree with you,” said he, following out his usual
trick of complimenting people for ideas which he had himself:
suggested. “ Let us avoid scandal. The less we roll it
about, the less there will be of it. It is only weak or dirty
people who enjoy dirty insinuations and give easy credit to
dirty stories. Human nature is bad enough, but not near so
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 117

bad as the wicked would have us believe. The respectable
classes may be none too worthy of the name, but they are far
more worthy than the disreputable classes represent them.
The corrupt are engaged in an eternal conspiracy against
the good fame of the decent. For instance, a rumor comes
out that some lady in a fashionable or religious circle has
fallen from virtue. The tale is instantly welcomed by all
the rakes and harlots in town; they rejoice in it, plead for
it, magnify it, proclaim it; they fairly wallow in it like hogs
in the mire. For my part, I can easier credit that a gay
Lothario will lie, or that circumstances will deceive, than
that a woman, who has been educated purely, will commit
that folly which in her js the crime of crimes, the sin inex-
piable, the misstep from which there is no recovery. I
think that such would be the creed of every true gentle-
man.”

Oh, the interesting villain! I thought; the sentiments are
just and magnanimous ; but what does he mean by counter-
feiting them? Has he mistrusted my suspicions of him, and
does he intend to shame me out of them with the fear of
being considered one of the vulgar and disreputable? I
must be cautious, or I shall put myself in a false position.

- He threw away his cigar now, and seemed to be awaiting
my pleasure to leave the baggage chaos. Determined to be
polite and insinuating, at no matter what cost of the means
of happiness, I tossed out of the window a delicate cheroot
only half smoked, bowed him through the door, and followed
him into the passenger cars. Disappointment and derision
pursued my novitiate in detective-policemanship. As we
sidled through the second car, looking for a vacant place in
the long rows of crimson velvet cushions, a fan touched Som-
erville on the arm, and a genteel pretty lady of twenty-two
or twenty-three, who seemed to be travelling alone, blushingly
pronounced his name. With a gesture of apology for quit-
ting me, he halted, and took the single unoccupied seat by
her side. Another Mrs. Van Leer, perhaps, I thought, as I
118 SEACLIFF.

crushed my way onward into the third car, and found
rest at last by the side of a tobacco-chewing mariner, the
owner, possibly, of the aforementioned grimy sea-chest. The
task of amusing myself on the way down was not a difficult
one, for I had only to think of Seacliff and its inhabitants.

Arrived at New York, I sought out Somerville again, but
he had already got into a hack with his lady friend, and I
could guess but very vaguely at their destination from secing
them drive up Broadway. The station of the New York
and New Haven Railroad was then in Canal Street, close by
the St. Knickerbocker. I took a coach to that palatial hotel,
_exchanged a nod with the condescending and gentlemanly
proprietor, secured with some difficulty the grandiose atten-
tion of one of the perfumed clerks, and was graciously desig-
nated to a room in the seventh story, with a sublime look-out
over New York City and State. Having washed, dressed,
and lunched, I walked down to the reading-room, carried a
paper to one of the front windows and watched an hour or
so for Somerville. There were a hundred chances to one
that I should not see him; and the majority carried it, as it
ought in a democratic country. Admitting at last, with much
indignation, that I had totally lost scent of him, I resolved to
visit the lair of Westervelt, senior, and see what sort of
game he looked like.

I set off on foot down Broadway. ‘The sweeping crowd
of earnest-eyed pedestrians soon effected a diversion in my
ideas, and became an amusement. As I noted the endless
diversity of faces, the multitudinous dissimilarities of height
and form which passed me, I imagined how infinitely greater
would be the contrasts presented to my eyes, could I see the
spirits of that hurrying throng, as I now saw its merely out-
ward, temporal presences. One visage would be black with
the passions of hell, and another luminous with the purity of
Paradise. This man would shrivel into a dwarf of grovel-
ling meanness, while that would tower majestically above my
dim sight, holding his glorious brow even with the heaven of
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 119

heavens. Deformities of soul, hideous hunchbacks of spirit
would present themselves in unimaginable varieties of hateful-
ness. ‘The monsters that spawn in the sunless caverns of the
sea, the unnamed creatures that inhabited the first ages of
creation, the ghostly, formless shapes of Chaos and Old Night,
the chimeras, hydras, sphinxes, griffins, and centaurs of an-
tique credence, would not be so abnormal to my sight as
would be these incorporeal fellow-beings of mine, could I
behold them. How many a man, with the spirit of a mur-
derer, goes through life innocent of blood! How many
another, who longs to commit foul outrage upon innocence,
and who does not slay his passions but secretly feeds them
with vicious reveries, is always held by the chains of fear or
of circumstance within the limits of external virtue! Such,
at least, is the orthodox theological view of these moral dis-
similitudes. If the transcendentalists and optimists are right,
they are not monstrous, but normal, and the mere “ stepping-
stones to better things.” It is a gentle belief, certainly, and
very attractive in its catholic charity.

Apropos of these reflections, I. tried to fancy the spiritual
man of Somerville, walking beside his physical man, and
contrasting hideously with its graceful and dignified beauty.
Would it so contrast, or was I doing him injustice? That
was exactly the question which I intended to solve. In the
mean time neither his spiritual nor his physical man appeared
to me.

Turning into South Street, I looked for No. 800, resolved
to know Westervelt, senior, at least by sight, and perhaps
hoping, in my silly heart, that I should fall into accidental
conversation with him, and win his instant favor. Would it
not have been a beautiful thing to charm his stony nature,
to coax him to offer me his granddaughter, and to be the
means of reconciling him’ with the family of Seacliff? There
was the Quincy granite portal of the money god’s temple,
and there was that name which represented so many dollars,
painted unostentatiously on a small tin placard, scratched
120 SEACLIFF.

and grimy, which was fastened to one of the plain gray door-
posts. I think that I felt somewhat as Christian did when he
passed the cave of Giant Pope in the shadowy valley.’ This
is the den of an ancient caitiff, I said, who could do me fear-
ful harm, dungeon my life in despair, break my heart. on the
wheel, crack all my sinews of hope, and surround my feelings
with consuming fagots of disappointment. Then I nearly
laughed to think of the angry astonishment of the old gen-
tleman, if I should walk in some day and address him as
Grandfather !

While I loitered, a small, thin, alert man of seventy or
‘seventy-five, with large Roman features, great gray eyes,
and short stiff white hair, brushed upright, stepped briskly:
into the doorway from the interior, and stared sternly at the
Quincy granite stores opposite, very much as if he had
resolved to knock them down that afternoon, and build better
ones next morning. He talked impatiently to himself, and
beat a sharp tattoo with his cane on the granite doorstone.
As I resumed my walk, and passed slowly by him, a tall,
portly gentleman came to his side and looked down at him
with precisely the same expression as if he were looking up
at him. “So,” said he, “you decidedly disapprove of the
operation, Mr. Westervelt ?”

“Yes, sir,” returned the senior, in a voice as sharp, dis-
tinct, and decided as the click of his cane. “ Disapprove of
it altogether, sir. You don’t want two more clippers any
more than you want two camel-leopards. Shouldn’t weight
yourself, so, sir. Why, sir, my dunce of a son couldn’t have
a worse idea. No, sir; no more clippers. Good-morning,
Mr. Jones.”

Down he came from the doorstone, brushing against my
shoulder, and stamping vigorously away ahead of me, with-
out a single glance, favorable or unfavorable, for my person.

So that is her grandfather! I said to myself. He resem-
bles her rather less than the dry root of a peach-tree resem-
bles the golden fruit which swings among the green branches
above it.
A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 121

This was the whole of my acquaintance with Westervelt,
senior, for some time. I walked back to Broadway, on the
look-out for Somerville; but it was not easy to find such a
slippery needle in such a vast haymow as New York; and
at last I returned, dispirited, tired, hungry, and cross, to the
St. Knickerbocker.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER X.

CERTAIN DISCOVERIES.

(Ore HE next morning found me still ignorant of the
whereabouts of Somerville. I had wasted the pre-

vious evening in searching for him; had visited the
opera and several theatres; examined the books of eight or
ten hotels; looked into various billiard saloons ; patrolled the
streets; all useless. Since fortune disarranged my plots
against the demon of the house of Seacliff, it was best, I con-
cluded, to attend to my own interests and render myself wor-
thy to stand forward in case of need as the guardian angel
of the threatened Westervelts. I wanted my crown of wealth
and wings of renown immediately; and I would go to my
publishers to see if they were not almost ready. Walking
down Broadway, I struck across the Park to Nassau Street,
and turned into that contracted but delightful office of Messrs.
Bookworm & Binder, so fragrant with fresh paper, so lumin-
ous with gilded piles of new publications, so melodious with
the voices of poets establishing the relation between dollars
and the Muses.

The “Idler in Italy” was ready for issue and would be
out in three days, notwithstanding that his practical patrons
exceedingly doubted the expediency of sending him on his
adventures in such warm weather. There he was, a clean,
sweet-scented, gay little: knight-errant, wearing his gold let-
tering as gallantly as a Crusader wore his cross, and sworn
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 123

to the devoir of conquering for me some island of Barata-
ria, undiscovered as yet, in the wide ocean of fame. How
simply pleased I was to hold him in my hand, and with what
an affectation of indifference I spoke of his prospects! I was
old enough to behave better; but a man is always youthful
the moment he publishes his first book.

Humorously telling Messrs. Bookworm & Binder that I
hoped they would not become bankrupt because I had idled
in Italy, I bade them good-morning and walked back into
Broadway, feeling as if the wings were already sprouting
from my hitherto merely human shoulders. The idea oc-
curred to me of running in upon fashionable lady friends to
catechize them about the moral standing of Somerville ; but
would a lady, however fashionable, know the worst, or know-
ing it, have the face to utter it? The female American is
fastidiously delicate, and ignores the existence of Don Juans
and Julias, at least so far as I have had an opportunity to
enjoy her conversation. It is laughable sometimes, but the
practical result seems to be good, and perhaps it is the better
way. ®

At the moment of closing this brief moral generalization,
I caught a glimpse of something in the window of a third-
rate jeweller’s shop, which brought me to a sudden halt, fol-
lowed by a prolonged stare and a thrill of discovery. Step-
ping in with an assumed air of indifference, I nodded politely
to a green youth behind the counter, who seemed to be troub-
led with that ailment peculiar to chickens, known as the gapes,
and asked him to let me see some ladies’ watches and brace-
lets. He showed several middling specimens of both, but none
of them were exactly what I wanted. At last I-ventured to
point out a diamond bracelet, and an enamelled watch with a
remarkably heavy chain, which hung in the window, and sig-
nified to him that those articles might prove an irresistible
attraction.

“ But these are second-hand,” said I, after a moment's ex-
amination.
124 SEACLIFF.

“Yes, sir, they are second-hand,” the green youth hesitat-
ingly but respectfully admitted, taking me, no doubt, for a
brother jeweller, or at least for a connoisseur of note in his
art. “They are very fine, though; just as fine as if they was
bran-new ; the diamond is splendid; watch first-rate Geneva
article. We've marked ’em down a good deal; dirt cheap,
sir.”

“You bought them yesterday of a Mr. Somerville,” said I,
looking him full in the eyes.

“We bought em this morning of a Mr. , Mr. 5
don’t remember,—don’t know his name,” replied the lad, sud-
denly shedding a little of his greenness, and showing an
under shell, not yet very solid, of caution.

“Oh! I thought I knew them,” observed I; “but never
mind; no consequence. I don’t want a second-hand article.
Good-morning.”

The green youth was absurd enough to look indignant be-
cause I bought nothing after giving him so much trouble and
asking him impertinent questions. Leaving him to commu-
nicate the circumstance to his Jew employer, whose *massive
semi-lunar nose had already risen from behind a desk in the
back part of the shop, I walked away, meditating gloomily
over my discovery. It was the very watch, certainly, and
the very bracelet, I believed, that I had seen im the hands of
Somerville. Is it possible, I asked, that the human vam-
pire, the man who feeds upon women, who fascinates only to
pillage them, has at last’reached America, and is to be found
even in our retired country-houses, mingling with our fairest
and tenderest and purest? In France and Italy showy
wretches had been pointed out to me, who had no other means
of subsistence than to win love and transmute it into gold.
With the simple patriotism of youth, I then believed and
proudly said, that no countryman of mine could be base
enough to live an hour, if life were only to be supported at
the cost of such infamy. But was not my boast confounded,
and the vampire, native-born, already incarnate among us?

 

 
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 125

Shocking as the supposition was, anxiously as I sought to
evade it, it seemed probable that Somerville had made an
utter ruin of Mrs. Van Leer, and was now robbing her purse
of its pittance, and her person of its trinkets, by the hideous
right that he had robbed her soul of its purity.
I suppose that I was something of a mystery, and per-
haps an object of grave suspicion to the pawn-brokers
and small jewellers of New York during the rest of that
day. I hunted them in all directions, inspected their win-
dows and show-cases, and made them exhibit their most
secret stores, purchasing nothing meanwhile, and solely intent
on spying out second-hand ornaments which bore the name
of Van Leer, and had been in the possession of Somer-
ville. It was a fruitless and perhaps foolish way of spend-
ing my time, but it was the best that I could devise. Indeed,
. I possess hardly a ripple of what might be called the bump

of detectiveness, and should make one of the clumsiest spies
- or policemen that could be, as the reader will abundantly per-
ceive by the time he has finished this history. At last it oc-
curred to me that it would be a good thing, the very thing that
I ought to have done at first, to buy the watch and bracelet
which I had recognized. I will do so, said I; stick them in
Somerville’s face; stick them in Mrs. Van Leer’s face; see
if they won’t turn twenty colors. I hurried back to the shop,
but the watch and the bracelet had disappeared.

“Sold, sir; regular bargain ; snapped up right away,” said
green youth, while the blush of an inexperienced liar man-
tled his downy countenance. They had taken the alarm
there, and were on their guard against me.

Emerging from the shop, I caught sight of Somerville, as
I thought, in an omnibus which was receding up Broadway.
No hack-stand being near, I gave chase in another omnibus,
choosing of course a full one, and suffering torments between
two fat women, who all the while looked daggers at me as if
I was very impertinent in occupying any space whatsoever.
After a fidgeting pursuit of half a mile, my vehicle passed
126 SEACLIFF.

his, and behold he was neither there nor thereabout. Then
I spied him walking down Bond Street ; ran a square, at the
risk of being chased as a pickpocket; overtook a handsome
Spaniard, stared at him, and returned to Broadway. In such
labors of indefatigable imbecility the day wore out. In
Paris I should have been arrested for a lunatic or a conspira-
tor; in New York no one noticed me, the police being too
lazy, and all others too industrious. Another grand tour
through the theatres, another inspection of hotel-books, an-
other peep into billiard saloons, wasted the evening and sent
me to bed in as pettish a humor as the untamable hyena.

The next morning, after an early breakfast, I set off down
Broadway, resolved to lie all day in ambush before the post-
office, keeping an eye on the delivery-door leading to the let-
ter S. I had reached the lower end of the Park when I was
saluted by an old friend, a schoolmate, whom I shall not
otherwise name than to call him the Reporter. I knew that
he had been very poor; but he looked so spruce and in such
good spirits that I felt at liberty to ask how he was getting
along,—tolerably certain that the answer would be agreeable
to what he had of vanity.

* Not so badly,” said he. “ Observe my hat, if you please ;
that is the index of a man’s fortunes. Isn’t it fresh, lumin-
ous, eh? Your humble servant is contributor to a Monthly,
and scavenger or items-man to a Daily. I am not drunk
when I say scavenger. In sober earnest, and not to put too
fine a point upon it, the word describes my business. I pick
old rags of scandal and other trumpery from the moral gut-
ters of this city, and starch and iron them to the taste of my
public. It is not a satisfactory trade to a man of my aspira-
tions,—a man who wants to be the united Scott and Byron
of his age ;—but then it pays well, and I am not rich enough
to resist good pay. Besides, it is profitable in another sense ;
it supplies me with studies of character; prepares the way for
novels ; monstrously amusing, too; hear the drollest things.”

“ You are just the man I want. Come, not to waste your
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 127

time and so keep the world waiting for its titbits of tattle,
Tul walk in your direction. J am in the greatest need of a
gossip-monger. Do you know anything of a merchant in the
China trade, named—ah—let me see—oh, Westervelt,—yes,
that’s the name,— Westervelt.”

“Qld Westervelt? Westervelt, senior, of South Street?
Know anything of him? Yes, know he’s rich; worth at
least five millions. Hang the unintellectual old Crcesus!
Why doesn’t he patronize literature, and start poor authors?
Tl tell you what I'd do, Fitz Hugh, if I had five millions, or
even so little as a million; I'd look up talented poor rats,—
fellows with full heads and empty stomachs,—support ’em
while they took their time to write good things,—then help
7em publish. Why the devil these auriferous old dunces
don’t think of it, and do it, is more than I can understand.”

“Perhaps you had best mention the idea to Mr.—Mr.
Whatshisname. Perhaps he would be delighted to hear
of .it.”

“ Delighted to kick me out of his office. You can’t imag-
ing, Fitz Hugh, how basely indifferent our New York mer-
chant princes are to literature. All they go for is hard facts ;
that is, facts that_can be transmuted into hard money. Well,
what do you want to know about old Westervelt ?”

“Ts it perfectly positive that he—that he is—ah, so enor-
mously wealthy?” (Here I twisted my moustache, and
looked up and down the street indifferently.) “Isn’t he very
much extended, and liable to break, eh?”

“Not a bit of it; no extension about him; never ’ll ask an
extension, either. China’ll break before he-does. He isn’t
much in the central flowery trade now ; investing, perhaps,
in the other celestial kingdom. Yes, he cut the pig-tails
about two years ago. They made a new house of it, and he
only put in half a million as silent partner; so, you see, he
can’t lose much, especially as he never indorses, not even for
his own son. I believe the balance of his estate is well dis-
tributed and well invested. Why, sir, he has a million in
128 SEACLIFF.

New York and Chicago lots, sure to double every ten years.
He’s a cold, close, iron-bowelled old safe, though. I wish he
was dead,—I do, out of the purest charity and benevolence—
solely, I assure you, for the honor and interests of human
nature. He has a son whom he snubs publicly,—actually
blows him up on ’Change,—and two lovely granddaughters,
to whom he hardly allows the pin-money necessary to sup-
port life. My greatest objection to him, however, is that he
doesn’t assist struggling genius. I know he wouldn’t lend me
a dollar, Fitz Hugh, unless I left him my hat in pawn.”

“What a monster!” said I. “One reads of jugt such
people, though.”

“ But I don’t wonder that he keeps his son short of funds,”
continued the Reporter. “ Westervelt, junior, is the confound-
edest fool! Bought a lot of cotton in the spring, at ten cents ;
saw. it go up to twelve and a half; shinned it, and held on as
long as he could; saw it go down to nine, and then sold.
That was a few days ago, and I reckon that he’s just about
dead broke. The senior paid the loss; very often does pay
the loss when it’s a crusher, I hear ; but revenges himself by
calling the junior all the names he can think of. Perhaps,
on the whole, it’s lucky for the pretty granddaughters that
the old one doesn’t die. The son has a perfect alacrity in
sinking ; he would be able to hide his two millions in a nap-
kin in less than five years from the time he got them; he
would be such an awful temptation to our man-eating brokers,
that they couldn’t help devouring him. All things consid-
ered, I should advise old Westervelt to stick by till his son
is on the other side of Jordan. When he goes, though, he’ll
have to be after him quick to keep him from speculating away
his gold harp and crown.”

“You said Westervelt, junior, would get two millions,” I
remarked. “There are other heirs then ?”

“Yes ; two sisters and their children, resident here. Then
it is understood that about a million will be wasted in found-
ing colleges, just as though we hadn’t too many in the coun-
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 129

try already. Much better use it in giving twenty-five thousand
apiece to forty struggling geniuses. However, that story
about the college-is all nonsense ; you may take my word for
it that old Westervelt will never let a dollar roll outside of
the family circle——But, hallo! there’s my man, and “yours
too. See that’ elegant swell over there? That's Dandy
Somerville. He knows New York from the foam to the
dregs. Come along. I want some fashionable scandal, and
you can ask him about Westevelt, senior. By the way, what
makes you take such an interest in the old fellow? Got
acquainted with the granddaughters ?”

“ Good-bye, my dear boy,” said I, hastily, “I know Somer-
ville; see him some other time; don’t ask him anything for
me. Much obliged-for your information. Good-bye.. By
the way, just ask Somerville where he is staying. See you
again sometime. Good-bye, old fellow.”

Naturally, I did not care to let Somerville know that I
was inquiring about the fortune of Westervelt, senior. He
might be malicious enough to joke about the affair at Seacliff,
and he certainly would not give me credit for my true feel-
ings on the subject, nor believe that these vast specie expecta-
tions of Miss Westervelt were only a burden and terror to
my spirit. At first it was bad enough, when only the miragic
enchantment of beauty seemed to put her beyond my reach;
but now, furthermore, I had discovered a golden desert be-
tween us, as discouraging in its dimensions as the great
Zahara.

I saw the Reporter overtake Somerville, talk with him a

minute, and lead him into Delmonico’s.
Fashionable scandal! I muttered. A pretty way of earn-
ing your treats! Let me ever catch you setting a bad word
afloat about the Westervelts, you elegant calumniator! And
only yesterday, you gave me such a noble lecture on the dir-
tiness of scandal. Verily, Satan rebuketh sin, in these times
as of old.

Looking about for an ambush from whence to waylay
6*
130 SEACLIFF.

Somerville on his reappearance, I observed a chopthouse,
directly opposite Delmonico’s, bearing the following legend.
on its sign board.

Tur Rerreat or Otp Birt Hosson.
Hot Joints from Twelve to Four.

I entered, and seated myself at a table by a front window.
It was a long, dark room, slovenly, soiled, and smoky, con-
taining thirteen small tables of stained cherry, thirty-three
wooden-bottomed chairs, a model of a pilot schooner set over
a freckled looking-glass, and two or three rusty engravings
of yachts, racers, &c., hanging awry against the walls. On
one of the tables lay two or three copies of the Illustrated.
London News, two or three Punches, a Bell’s Life in London,
and a New York Herald. A dozen men of the “hossy”
sort, mostly English, sat here and there, eating, drinking,
talking, and smoking. A handsome, dissipated young fellow
stood near me, calling on a party of his friends to finish their
dinner and come out on a lark. Holding fast to a chair
with one hand, and gesturing violently with the other, he

- swayed and jerked like a galvanized corpse, talked. loud,
swore at every other word, looked about him insolently, as if
anxious to pick a quarrel, and, in short, was very drunk and.
not far from delirium tremens. A chubby boy was serving
the guests with fat jorums and long slim glasses of ale. Old
Bill himself, a lean leathery personage, an Englishman run
to legs in America, approached me with a dignified suavity
which showed travel, and asked what I would have. I told
him ale, and he brought me some half-and-half, as full of
sparkle as the best of London. Lighting a cheroot, I sipped
quietly, keeping an eye on the door of Delmonico’s, and an
ear on the conversation of my neighbors.

“T tell you, I had a lark last night,” said the man who was
coquetting with mania-a-potu. He had seated himself by
this time, finding that it was impossible to inveigle his hungry
comrades away from their dinner.
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 131

“Take something to eat, Tom,” observed one of them,
pausing before he swallowed an oyster.

“No, curse it! I can’t eat. I haven’t eaten anything since
yesterday. You don’t know how infernal sickish Iam. But
I was saying, I had a lark.”

“You have too many larks, Tom. It’s an unwholesome
sort of bird.”

“You be hanged! Tl be all right again in a day or two.
But just listen, won’t you? and hold your cursed noise. I
was out with Somerville; you know Somerville; curse it,
everybody knows Somerville. But I was out with him all
night ; yes, curse it, till morning come again; rooting through
all the hells and holes we could find. And if there’s a hole
in New York that Somerville can’t find, it must be a devilish
sly one.”

“ Did he find the hole in your pocket, Tom ?”

“In my pocket? Well, everything ran out; that’s all I
know, boys, haw haw haw! put every penny through before
morning.”

This young man did not share in the common prejudice
against the word damn, and used it in those places where I
have hypocritically represented him as uttering expressions
of much milder and less sulphurous import. In truth, if I
should give his conversation exactly as it fell from his lips,
the good world would shut to the covers of this book as
hastily as it would close, or thinks it would close the gates of
hell, if permitted to do so.

He went on detailing, in his drunken hiccoughs, the partic-
ulars of a night spent in the sewers of New York vice. I
could not discover positively whether the Somerville of these
scenes was the Somerville now in Delmonico’s; but I sus-
pected it more and more strongly as the story hobbled
downward through ever descending sinks of pollution; and
I gnashed at the thought that such a wretch should be
the guest of Seacliff, free to weave there his webs of more
elegant wickedness. The “lark” had ended, it seems, at a
182 SEACLIFF.

gambling resort, where the Somerville of the drunken tale
won largely. “ And I lost,” continued Tom ; “he won, and I
lost; that was it. I never was lucky with him. We always
drink, and he never minds the liquor ; just as sharp and bob-
bish after it as before. No, I never was lucky with him: but
then, curse it, I don’t ’grudge it; no gentleman would ’grudge
it. He needs the money, you know, or he couldn’t keep his
larks a-fiying.”

Half an hour having passed, I got impatient, and paying
for my ale at the door, strolled over to Delmonico’s, resolved
to join the two scandal-mongers. Seated alone at one of the
most retired of the little tables, bottles and glasses standing
empty before him on the sticky marble, the Reporter was
scribbling with pencil in a well worn: note-book.

“ Ah! there you are again,” said I. “ Where is Somer-
ville?” :

“Gone. Sawa gentleman at the front door looking for
him, and left by the back door.”

“ A pretty early hour to be thirsty,” I remarked, nodding
at the bottles. “I reverence the strength of your head.”

“ Only soda-water. Somerville made a night of it some-
where, and wanted to cool his coppers instead of heating
them. Flush of money, too; paid the shot out of his own
pocket ; most uncommon performance for him, I assure you.
I think somewhat of giving his magnanimity a favorable
notice in our paper. Not that he is stingy; but then he
generally spends his cash on the other sex, and so has to
sponge upon ours; in other words, robs Peter to pay
Pauline.”

“Well, you asked him where he was staying ?”

“No, I didn’t: it was of no use; he is off in two hours for
Washington ; at least, he told me so.”

“ He may have told you the truth,” said I. “ Now what's
the gossip? Let’s have it in advance of the public.”

“Why, yes; I’ve got a jewel here, that is sure. The only
fault is that it is too brilliant; it might attract too much
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 1338

attention. JI shall have to pare it a little before it will be
safe to set it up as the capital of one of our columns. Look
here. Do you want to see the dirty work that I have to do
in order to earn my bread, at the same time that I gratify
my passion for pen and ink? Thank your stars, Fitz Hugh,
that your father lived before you.”

I took the note-book and read a paragraph of two pages.
It was a tale of sin and shame in. high life; of a folly-
stricken woman and a man who gloried in villainy; a story
without names, but marked by dates, and events, and places ;
a story the more abominable because the narrator of it was
evidently its hero. I read it’ twice over, following out its
chain of circumstances carefully, and coming each time to
so distinct a conclusion, that I nearly pronounced aloud,
“Mrs. Van Leer!”

“Now then,” said I, as he retook the note-book, “how
much will you get for that rascally trifle?”

“With the help of a joke or two, and ditto of quotations
from the proper authors, I think I can make a dollar-piece
out of it. But that isn’t all: it will get me credit at the
office for cleverness ; and therefore I may fairly consider it
worth, say three dollars. To be sure, I shall have to give
Somerville an advertisement in our paper; hook it in if
Possible; pay it, if necessary.”

“ An advertisement? Has the man really any busi-
ness?”

“Yes; business in Cupid’s court; he advertises in the
personal column.”

“Oh! He does, eh? What signature? come now, that’s
a good fellow.”

“No, I ain’t a good fellow, and I shan’t tell you the signa-
ture. You wouldn’t have me frighten away the goose that
lays my goldenest eggs, would you?”

“No; never mind; it was mere curiosity. But I covet
this story of yours, and I'll give you five dollars for it.”

“You? What do you want of it? Are you going to set
184 SEACLIFF.

up a daily, and have a scandal department? Please. to
nominate me one of your editors; not in the tittle-tattle line,
though; I crave respectability.”

“ Never mind what I want of it. I want to burn it more
than anything else. What do you say to the offer?”

“You are the most persuasive creature, Fitz Hugh!
You have such an insinuating way with poor geniuses! Tl
take the shekels, and there’s your copyright.”

He tore out the two sheets, and I put them in my pocket,
while he calmly fobbed the half eagle.

“Of course the story is altogether mine now,” said I;
“you are not to print it nor repeat it. And, by the way,
suppose that you tell me one thing: don’t you believe that
Somerville himself is the rascally hero of this narrative ? ”

“ Why, he didn’t say that, you understand. Of course you
are at liberty to suspect it; but he didn’t confess it.”

“No matter. I believe that he is, whether his boast of
success is true or false. I only wish that the manuscript

were in his handwriting.”

‘« Ah! but in that case you wouldn’t have got it. Honor
among thieves, you know, even if they filch good names. By
the way, you seem to know, or to guess at, the lady’s per-
sonality.”

“ Possibly. What would you give to learn it? I woutd
part with the secret for a million—nothing less.”

“ How very cheap! But I don’t happen to have such a
thing as a million about me. I wish I had. Another time,
if you please, unless you are willing to take my note, payable
when I have secured all my castles in the clouds. For I do
dream of millions, Fitz Hugh; yes, I have faith to believe
that there is a million somewhere laid up for me; at least in
the coin of fame. But I must be off to hunt down some
other reputation for my villainous public. Your humble
servant.”

“ Good-bye, my -dear fellow. Forgive me for just one
frank word at parting. I don’t like this particular rut, or
CERTAIN DISCOVERIES. 135

rather puddle, in your path of duty ;—I am excessively an-
noyed to find an old schoolmate dipping his pen—excuse me
—in the devil’s inkhorn.”

“Thank you, for your sympathy,” he replied, wincing a
little as he observed my earnestness. “I dare say that at
bottom, the Old Harry is my employer; it is the Satanic
Press that I work for, I acknowledge ; but the fact is, that I am
less afraid of the devil than of my own stomach. The ques-
tion with me is not so much how I can escape the clutches
of the one, as how I can pacify the juices of the other. It is
all very easy for you to preach and practise fine moralities,
with your pockets full of half eagles and certificates of bank
stock. But put yourself in my situation, with never a divi-
dend coming in from year’s end to year’s end, and all the
while an old mother looking to you to keep a flicker of fire
under her teapot. You haven’t lived the whole round of
human life, my boy.”

We both colored; he, with shame of his work; I, with
shame of my reproof.

“T beg your pardon, my friend,” said I. “So you sup-
port a mother? JI never earned a dollar for any one’s sup-
port, not even my own. You humble me, really. I am
very sorry that I have annoyed you with my cheap virtue.”

“ Don’t take it hard,” he replied, good-naturedly. “You
are right at bottom; good ends don’t justify bad means; the
holy Jesuit fathers to the contrary, notwithstanding. Tl
crawl out of this puddle, as you very properly call it, before
long. Good-bye, again.”

We shook hands, and he walked away rapidly. I gave
my manuscript purchase another perusal, and once more
muttered, “Mrs. Van Leer!” Yet in a few moments I found
that the very atrocity of the revelation was working its own
antidote, by leading me to suspect that Somerville had im-
posed upon the Reporter with a monstrous fiction. Was it
possible that this man, so polished in ‘manner, so noble in
intellect, so fitted by nature and education to be an ornament
136 SEACLIFF.

and exemplar of society, could be the deliberate oppressor,
torturer, and robber, of an unfortunate woman, whose too
great confidence and love had placed her in his power?
Would any man dare to hint such infamies concerning his
own life? No, the story could not be true, or it must refer
to some other than Somerville. And yet—the words of the
boudoir! And yet—the bracelet! the watch! I vacillated,
believed, disbelieved, suspected, and remained at last in a
state of the most disagreeable doubt.

 
 

 

 

CHAPTER XI.

APPROACHING THE MYSTERY.

WAS about to return to Seacliff that afternoon,

when business thrust its iron finger into my button-

hole. Day after day necessity said, Remain! and
in great vexation of spirit I obeyed, finding only this comfort
in my calamity, that I could send to that country-house
which was my public, a copy of the “Idler in Italy,” on
the fly-leaf of which was written, “To Miss Mary Wester-
velt, with the compliments of Louis Fitz Hugh.”

Resolved not to abate one atom of my privileges as an au-
thor, I forwarded an accompanying note, wherein I introduced
my trifling sketches of travel to Miss Westervelt, begged her
to excuse the liberty which I took in bringing them to her
notice, regretted that they were not more worthy of her at-
tention, and informed. her, although with some misgivings as
to the propriety of personal particulars, that I hoped soon to
regain the delightful society of Seacliff. How I felt as I
dropped the billet into the post-office, and saw that it was
gone beyond recall! It seemed as if I had taken a decisive
step in life; as if I had passed bodily through that narrow
orifice ; as if I could no more be the Fitz Hugh that I had been.

For an answer to this note and its printed fellow ambassa-
dor, I haunted the post-office till all the clerks knew me by
sight, and used to look through their files without stopping to
hear my name. There are persons whose mere routine of
138 SEACLIFF.

life it is to be ministers of fate to their fellow-creatures, and
none perform this office more constantly, more unconsciously,
than the quick-eyed men whose faces greet yours through
those plain, matter-of-fact openings labelled Drtrvery.
Nothing came for me, and life began to wear an aspect
of dreariness verging upon the downright disagreeable. I
suspected various annoying things: was sure that Bob Van
Leer had intercepted the book; that Mr. Westervelt had
indignantly kicked it into the fire; that: Somerville had
returned to Seacliff, and slandered me; that Miss Wester-
velt herself looked upon me as an impertinent ; that the post-
office clerks had robbed the mail. I resolved that I would
not go back to Seacliff; and as soon as I could, I broke my
resolution. Ten days of absence had elapsed,—ten days of ,
two hundred and forty hours each, instead of twenty-four,—
when I again came in sight of the low, rounded bluff, its
crest of trees, and its imitation Parthenon.

“Well, Lewy, and now I suppose you are going up to the
great house right away,” said Ma Treat, smiling very cun-
ningly and cheerfully.

“T rather think not this evening,” drawled I, indifferently ;
and was hesitating up the Seacliff steps, within an hour
thereafter. Through the wide-open door breathed the old,
well-remembered rustle of womanly robes, and, borne on it,
giving forth no other sound of motion, came Miss Westervelt,
flushed, smiling, with an outstretched hand of welcome.

.. Mr. Fitz Hugh!” she exclaimed, “I am glad to see you
back again. Very, very much obliged to you for your book,
and for your letter also.”

“ Ah! you received them, then?” I replied solemnly. “I
was not aware—”

“Yes, indeed. And I would have sent my thanks to you,
but you did not mention your address. You spoke, too, as if
you were not to be in New York long.”

“ Ah—yes, yes—certainly, I remember. How very ab-
surd in me! I must apologize to you,—or rather I must:
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 139

apologize to myself, for my blunder ; it has deprived me of a
great favor.”

Following her into the parlor, I found the whole family,
excepting Mr. Westervelt, who had, of course, gone to New
York on business. They welcomed me heartily, abused me
for having stayed away so long, and gave me such a hand-
shaking as half made me think.myself the president of some
country. My fingers were the most severely treated by my
sincere friend and bore, Robert Van Leer, who did not in the
least understand my smile of disgust, but showed such delight
at seeing me that it seemed as if he would not be contented
unless he could hold me in lap. Before I had been in the
room ten minutes, I felt as distinguished men, perhaps, feel,
. when they first become aware of their celebrity; for my
friends were charmed with my book, all of them, down to
Robert, who only regretted. there were no pictures. Miss
Westervelt, as I discovered to her confusion, had read it
privately to herself, and then read it aloud to her father,
without receiving from him the mildest provocation thereto,
by request or indirectly. Mrs. Van Leer was uncommonly
gracious, and bestowed upon me some of those attentions
with which she had been accustomed to inveigle Somerville.

“T tell you, old feller, you’re a brick,” said Bob, drawing
me aside at the first opportunity. “I knew you had the
brains,—knew it the first time I heard you speak. I say,
why don’t you go in for Genevieve? You could get her easy
now that you've got to be somebody. Ain’t she growing
up a beauty, though? Why, sometimes I think she’s pretty
near ‘as handsome as her sister. She'll have lots of tin, too,
some of these days; and while that’s a-coming along, you
could be writing these books of yours. By Jove! wouldn’t
it be fun if we should all four get married together, hey ?”

“How do you get on with your own suit?” I inquired,
artfully.

“Well, the old man’s agreeable, of course; but Mary, she
kind of turns me off and keeps me outside of the fence ; plays
140 SEACLIFF.

me, you know, like a feller does a fish. Hang it! some fel-
lers that’s got the grit and the brains would go right in and
win; but I can’t: when she sidles away from me so, and
looks grave, I feel all shut up, and can’t say a word for my-
self. Hang it! I wish I could write ;—I’d write it all out to
her in poetry; that would bring her to, wouldn’t it? But
Pm glad you sent her that book of yours. She was mighty
pleased to get it, and thanked me for bringing it to her from
the post-office. Old feller, I’m thunderingly obliged to you,
I am so.”

Here le shook my hand again, and suffered me to slip
back into the parlor.

“Do you know, Mr. Fitz Hugh,” said Mrs. Van Leer with
a killing smile, “that I am made. hor—ribly jealous by that
breast-pocket of yours? It looks precisely as if there might
be a min—iature in it; and I know that it is not mine. Do
tell us whose it is.”

I cannot help laughing now to think how anxious I was to
clear myself of the charge contained in this raillery. I has-
tily drew forth a tumbled copy of the New York Tattler, my
friend’s paper, and then slapped my pocket to show that it
was empty.

“Oh, that is all!” said the gay lady. “TI feel relieved.
Come, Mr. Fitz Hugh, read us the deaths and marriages.”

A little disconcerted by her coquettish pretences to me, I
fumbled over the paper, searching for an item which should
divert her badinage from me to some other object. I found
more than I looked for ; something which, I thought, referred
to her; something which, it seemed to me, would crush her.
I debated tremulously with myself whether I should read this
paragraph aloud. Let justice have her right, I decided ; let
the guilty one be called on to come out from among the inno-
cent; let her be commanded to brand herself publicly with
the blush of her own shame. Without any preamble or ex-
planation, therefore, I read from the column headed Personal,
this advertisement, “ JOSEPHINE, you treat me ill; you do
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 141

not answer me. I shall reappear. Love me or kill me.
Rupo.ra.”

From “Rudolph,” I raised my eyes instantly to Mrs.
Van Leer, and was fairly confounded by the serene, dazzling
brass of that canty countenance. First came a stare of pure
naive astonishment, then a sudden sparkle of coquettish com-
prehension, then a quick glance of roguery from me to Miss
Westervelt, and then a laugh, long, silvery, jocund, and ma-
licious.

“Ha! ha! ha! I see,” she said. “Je commence a com-
prendre. I heard that some—body wrote, and got no answer
to ‘his letter ;—sent a book, and received no thanks for it.
And so at last he fell to adverti—sing, did he? Really,
Mary, you look uncom—monly innocent; or, rather, you
try to.”

While I gasped for words under this impudence, which
seemed to hit me like a slap in the face,-Miss Westervelt
replied for me, with that readiness of speech which women
have, but not without a heightening of color. “For shame,
Julia! How uncharitable you are to charge Mr. Fitz Hugh
with such nonsense ! ”

“Yes, indeed! I protest against it,” said I, with unneces-
sary vehemence of language and manner. “TI object alto-
gether to such an idea. I assure you that I—”

“T ask your par—don, Mr. Fitz Hugh,” put in the crimi-
nal, with a mock humility of look, which was meant to be
excessively humorous. “Of course it was a naughty insinu-
ation, and of course there wasn’t an atom of truth in it.”

At that moment I heard a familiar footstep on the floor of
the veranda, and saw a well-known handsome face peep
smiling through one of the front windows. Here is Rudolph,
I thought ; but I only said, “ Here is Somerville.”

Mrs. Van Leer started up gleefully, ran to the front of the
parlor, peered out into the evening dusk, tapped on the glass,
and then sailed into the hall, holding up her skirts so as to
expose a pretty foot and rounded ankle. Miss Westervelt
142 SEACLIFF.

turned her face that way without rising, and I thought that
she looked disconcerted and anxious. It struck me that she
knew of the venomous mystery which lay coiled like a snake
in the bosom of the family, and that consequently she must
have understood the. promise of the advertisement, and saw
now in Somerville’s arrival its fulfilment. The mingled em-
barrassment and hauteur. with which she received his compli-
mentary salutations, confirmed me in this suspicion. Gene-
vieve, too, was stiff and reserved, although her fine eyes were
full of an excitement which I could not understand.

“Where is Mrs. Westervelt?” he asked, as he installed
himself on the sofa beside. Mary ; and I then recollected,
vaguely, that she had left the room while I was reading the
advertisement.

“T don’t know. She will be in presently, I dare say,”
observed Genevieve, dryly..

“T supposed that she could not be away,” he said. “I had
the pleasure of meeting Mr. Westervelt this morning, and he
told me that I should find her here.”

Genevieve went out, and soon returned with a message
from her stepmother, begging Mr. Somerville to excuse her
absence from the parlor, as she had just gone to bed with a
headache.

“ Certainly,” he replied. “No apology was necessary.
Please to inform her how much I regret her indisposition.”

Really, my dear fellow, you are a cool one, thought I.
Can’t you see that nobody in the house wants you except
Mrs. Van Leer, who is herself but a guest, and has no right
to offer the Seacliff hospitalities ? Whether he saw it or not,
it evidently did not weigh on his mind, and he talked time
away as gayly as any one. Mrs. Van Leer’s impudence
kept me in perpetual amazement, so flauntingly did she ex-
hibit her preference for Somerville, notwithstanding that her
husband sat by, and turned his slow brown eyes upon her at
every one of her coquettish sallies. I watched his face care-
fully, without being able to detect in its broad peaceful disk
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. | 143

one shadow of suspicion, or any sentiment but admiration of
his wife’s cleverness. But the fast lady’s brass shone with
the most astonishing effulgence when she snatched up that
copy of the Tattler, and in a voice shaken only by laughter,
read to Somerville the mysterious advertisement. Were they
both perfectly innocent, or were they altogether seared by
sin, that they could wear faces so devoid of guilty con-
sciousness? I turned away from them, for they seemed to
dazzle me, as two flaming devils might have done.

But for such thorny thoughts as these, the evening would
have passed like a dream of unmingled roses. Somerville
remained attached to Mrs. Van Leer’s skirts, which literally
fluttered and wriggled with coquettish delight, making occa-
sionally a most liberal display of French bootees and snow-
white stockings. Genevieve seemed absent, dull, and only
changed a few commonplace remarks with Henry Van Leer.
Consequently, I had Miss Westervelt to myself; for although
Bob sat by us, he was unobtrusive and silent, like a good-
natured, speechless, unsuspecting dolt, as he was; an attentive
listener to our talk, indeed, but a most unalarmed and grat-
ified one; his broad eyes fixed steadily on her, and never
diverted to me by any thrill of jealousy. Were there ever
two other brothers in one moderate-sized parlor so befooled
under their own noses as was this blockish couple of Van
Leers? I got home so late that evening that Pa and Ma
Treat both assaulted me with divers knowing, kindly smirks,
previous to lighting me up stairs, pointing out how all my
things had been nicely folded away, and leaving me with a
simple good-night, which sounded like a parental benediction.

Next day brought me trumpetings heralding the entrance
of the “Idler in Italy” into the world’s tourney. As it was
summer, the dull season in’ politics, business, and most other
serious pursuits, the papers had little to talk about, so that
my book received a flattering number of notices. To my
astonishment, however, no mention was made of the slips of
poetry which I had planted in my vegetable garden of prose.
144 a3 SEACLIFF. .

I considered this a deliberate, studied disparagement, and sus-
pected secret enemies in the New York press. I wonder how
many other young authors have been haunted by the same
dark suspicion, when they have seen the fairest, best-loved
children of their brain, the very Josephs of their inner life,
impaled on some critie’s pen, or, worse still, passed by in
silence. I looked to see if the lyrics had been copied into
any of the papers ; but the same malicious conspirators had
taken steps to prevent that also; and so I confounded the
age for a wooden one, not worthy the veneering of my poesy..
But if the Pyess,,that great engine of intellect and civiliza-
tion, as it modestly delights to style itself, did not admire my-
verses, there-was somebody who did, and whose good opinion
I coveted more even than the favor of monthly or daily.
That very day I surprised Miss Westervelt in the act of
copying from a fresh printed volume into an album. On my
appearance the “new publication” went into a writing-desk
with great celerity, while the album was slipped under a pile
of that mysterious woman’s work, the ruffles and embroid-..
eries of which no bachelor dares to touch lightly. Presently,
I saw Mrs. Van Leer abstract it from its hiding-place,.and
secrete it within the folds of her morning muslin; and two
minutes after, when Miss Westervelt ran to a window to look
at a humming-bird, the album was dexterously jerked into
my lap, and a mischievous smile encouraged me to open it.
The temptation was mighty, and I yielded to it in a hurry,
after the fashion of youth. There were extracts from Dante
and Tasso, Goethe and Schiller, Milton and Wordsworth,
Bryant and Longfellow, in that dear, delightful, scrawly
handwriting, a single pot-hook of which seemed to me enough
to hang a life upon. There, too, among the deathless off-
spring of the gods of song, were the lyrics of the “Idler in
Italy,” every halt and lame mortal of them; my “ Alpine
Landscapes,” the whole cold and rugged series, perfect bould-
ers of unshapely versification; my “Ode to Trajan’s Pillar,”
my “Mater Dolorosa,” and my “Youthful Raphael.” I
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 145

bestowed a glance of unutterable gratitude on Mrs. Van
Leer, and proceeded to read all the pieces at once in great
trepidation. Very soon Miss Westervelt came back to the
table ; halted, paralyzed, on catching sight of the volume in
my hands; then made a sudden rustling charge upon me, and
snatched it away.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh! that is my book!” she said, amazed
apparently, and confused certainly.

I made up a face of woful penitence, and pointed at
Mrs. Van Leer, who burst into a fit of uncontrollable
laughter, and shook her white fist at me with mock indig-
nation.

“Ob, you aw—ful coward! you mean-spirited creature !”
said she. “What! I do you a fa—vor,—give you a nice
sugar com—pliment to eat,—and then you expose me!
Well, well; this is the last time that I trouble myself to
please a man.”

“ Cousin Jule, you are too bad,” remonstrated Mary. “You
have no right to play such sharp tricks on me. You make
me ridiculous.” .

She was quite flushed, and looked so sincerely annoyed
and mortified, that my feigned air of repentance changed
rapidly to a real one. Mrs. Van Leer offered no regrets,
laughed repeatedly, insisted that the joke was a capital one,
not to be forgotten easily, and told Somerville’ of it when he
entered. “Don’t you wish you were an author?” she con-
tinued. “Wouldn’t it be deli—cious to surprise young ladies
copying one’s own po—etry? Oh! if I was a man, I would
write verses, if it cost me my life.”

“T congratulate Mr. Fitz Hugh,” said Somerville, with that
air of seemingly earnest respect which was his most winning
manner. “A man who has the true lyric fire burning in his
brain, is greatly to be envied. ‘Poetry is its own exceeding
reward. A poet has no right to complain, even if he remains
till death, poor and unnoticed. Nature is kinder to him than

to most men; she pays him in advance. The mere thrill of
7
146 SEACLIFF.

conception is a sufficient recompense for the labor of expres-
sion, the lack of just appreciation, and the whole wearisome-
ness of life.”

“ Why, Mr. Somerville, you must be yourself a poet,” said
I, surprised into addressing him with a friendly fervor.

“You a po—et, Mr. Somerville!” exclaimed Mrs. Van
Leer. “Oh! are you? Why haven't you read me some of:
your verses? Why haven’t you written me a son—net?
Come, you naughty man, defend yourself, explain! Tell
me now, do you re—ally write verses ?”

“T can’t believe it, Mrs. Van Leer,” he replied. “Would
I have failed to put you in the poet’s corner—of the news-
paper? Would I have failed to beg your admiration, if I
had anything whereby to claim it? No, the poetic feet have
never been vouchsafed me, and I have-had to hobble my way
through life on the crutches of prose.”

“Poor man! your situation wor—ries me,” said Mrs. Van
Leer. “You shouldn’t exhibit so much mortifica—tion,
though. It is no compliment to me, who can’t write a line
either.”

Somerville smiled and bowed in the most flattering ac-
knowledgment of the lady’s wit.

“Some of us are fortunate enough to live poetry, Mrs.
Van Leer,” said he.

“Oh! thank you,” she answered, courtesying. ~‘ That is
for me, and I accept it. I am poetry incar—nate. You can
go on now with your philosophy.” =

“There is an enviable magic in the name of author,” he
continued. “It is a species of notoriety that has a more
sudden expansion than most others, and perhaps a wider
range. A popular writer always passes in society at his full
value, and generally at something above his value. The
fame of having written a book, acts upon a man somewhat as
the die of the mint does on a piece of metal. Take a plain
circlet of gold, equal in size and weight .to an eagle, and
you cannot put it in circulation ; no one will receive it at its
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 147

true value until he has weighed it and tested it; and few
wish to give themselves so much trouble. But let the magic
finger of the mint be laid on the circlet; then every one
recognizes it, and is anxious to possess it. It is just so with
a man: authorship can hardly be said to increase his intrinsic
value; but it certainly does increase his currency. Mr.
Fitz Hugh, I congratulate you on your prospect of an exten-
sive circulation.”

What he said clearly tended to diminish my glory in the
eyes of the ladies; yet his reasoning was too evidently just
to admit of controversy ; and, besides, opposition would have
proved me guilty of absurd vanity.

“That is all perfectly just,” I remarked. “Authorship is
of course not an integral part of intellect; it is only one of
the most popular expressions of intellect.”

“Let me tell you one thing more,” he said, “ You will find
other men’s works attributed to you. You have only to wink,
and the public will crown you with a chaplet of anonymous
volumes. That,” he added with a smile which had some
scarcely perceptible curl of irony, “is another advantage
of authors, Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

He was wonderfully clever certainly, and had a rare grace
--of language and utterance. The reflection, that what he had
just been saying off-hand was quite as good as anything of the
kind which-I could write at my serenest leisure, forced itself
on me and produced a sentiment of proper humility. It was
rare that he talked thus weightily before women ; in general,
he treated them only to the dessert, the whipped creams, of
conversation ; but I imagine that just now he was determined
to make himself respected. Mrs. Van Leer felt the influence
as well as I, and listened to his deep earnest utterance with
an admiration which came as near to seriousness as her
trivial character could easily feel.

“Mr. Somerville,” said Mary, “the die of the mint is not
all that is necessary. The circlet itself must be gold. If it
is only brass, it cannot pass long for an eagle.”
148 SEACLIFF.

“Granted, Miss Westervelt. Mr. Fitz Hugh thanka
you, of course, for the inferred compliment. Observe, I
don’t dispute its justice. I have already prophesied his
currency.” Ls

So he had, and yet under his smiling mask of compliment
I thought I could detect a quiet sneer of irony and detraction
Laugh who will at the sensitive vanity and the jealousy of
authors, I maintain that the genus dandy and woman-killer
ought to. be painted with a still more enormous peacock-tail
of conceit. Perhaps, however, I did injustice to Somerville ;
he may not have had the least fear of being blighted by the
moderate shade of my bays; and, if really jealous of me, he
was certainly admirable for the grace with which he compli-
mented me. .

On the evening of that day, the four ladies of the family.
gallanted by Hunter and Bob Van Leer, drove over to Rock-
ford to attend a wedding. Henry had been invited, but pre-
ferred to stay at home with a fictitious headache and a rea)
cigar ; while Somerville and I, being strangers to the happy
couple, had not received the compliment of cards; and the
occasion was one of such tremendous privacy that there was
no possibility of smuggling us into the party. Mrs. Van
Leer charged us to keep each other company; but we soon
separated, as naturally as oil and water. Of late I felt an
aversion for him which I blunderingly called instinctive, and
considered it a proof of my quick perception of character,
not remembering how much I had admired him at first, and
how doubtfully I had faltered back from my primal estimate
of his worth. He was fixed now, however; he had. grown
to be what the Italians call by their favorite word, anti-
watico; the moment I was alone with him, conversation
flagged, and I seized the first chance to get away.

Leaving Somerville and Van Leer over cards and brandy,
I went home and stayed in my room till I got tired to death
of it. Then I turned out and strolled around the Seacliff
house ; surveyed in detail its classic ugliness, now ethereal-
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 149

ized to some semblance of beauty by moonlight; wandered
alone through the perfumed alleys of the garden, and finally
halted on the turfy forehead of the bluff. Empty as the
place was of all that interested me, I could not keep away
from it. Leaping a low railing, I slid cautiously down a
grassy bank, seated myself on a narrow shelf of stone which
formed the brink of the precipice, swung my legs over and
feasted my eyes on the still, star-spangled sheet of the Sound.
The air was summer soft, and I remained there an hour,
tranquillized by the gentle magic of calm night.

A rumble of approaching carriage-wheels, a rumor of
cheery voices, and, presently after, lights in the chamber
windows of the house, informed me that the departed had
returned. It was too late to call,and I remained alone with
my reveries, while a change swept over the dream of nature.
The new moon stooped lower, and fell away behind the dark
horizon. The clouds, which she had clothed with a brightness
like the robes of the just, lost their far shining glory, and dis-
appeared in blackness, as if, like Lucifer and his angels, they
had fallen from heaven. A sob of wind shook the trees; a
chiller breath flowed against my temples; the little waves
washed faster over the stones below my feet; and I became
sensible that a tempest was beginning to shake abroad its
sounding pinions. Through this gloom, and amid this pre-
monitory tremor of nature, I heard a voice speaking strange
wicked words. It came from the low bank behind me, and
was distinctly audible, although the speaker was hidden from
me, and his enunciation was but a hoarse whisper, broken, as
it seemed, by the swell of passion.

“ Satisfy me!” was his first utterance. “ Consent to-night ;
to-morrow will be too late ; to-morrow I will let all know that
-you are a guilty woman. Do what I say, and I will love and
spare you; if not, I will hate you and ruin you.”

A sob,—a woman’s sob,—answered ; and then a whisper,—
a woman’s whisper,—followed ; but indistinguishable in words.
Feet moved away from near me as the sobbing whisper con-
150 SEACLIFF.

tinued ; a rustle also, as of silken garments drawn over the
grass, floated by; and then I heard no more except indis-
tinctly. Cautiously, I ascended the bink; earnestly I gazed
after the receding footsteps; but the garden was darkness?
One of them was Somerville, I said to myself; and may the
Shepherd of lost sheep save the other ! -

~ Glancing at the house, I was amazed, confounded, to behold,
sitting by her window in a clear glow of lamplight, and so
plainly distinguishable that I could even see that she was
laughing, Mrs. Van Leer. The footsteps were yet faintly
audible in the garden; and now they seemed ‘to trample
down the sweetest hopes in my soul. It was not she, then!
Oh Heaven! who could it be?

Great drops of rain pattered on the leaves; the storm
warned me in rumbling monitions to séek shelter ; and, turning
away, I reached home amid thé first rattling rush of the
shower. It was not yet ten o’clock, and I sat down in the
little front entry of the old house, in full face of the howling,
dazzling tempest, but made deaf and blind to it by my more
tumultuous reveries, for at this moment I could think only of
the mystery of the garden, which I felt to be also the mys+
tery of the boudoir. Did the wretched secret of those whis-
pers, the shame which they had muttered of, lay its blight
upon the good name of that family which had lately become
of more importance to me than all the rest of the world put
together? Could Miss Westervelt directly, or by connivance,
be implicated in it? Earth would be no place of probation,
no residence of hope, but rather a region of confirmed demon-
ism and of final punishment, if such as she, or, what was
the same to me, such as I believed her to be, could falsify

‘their natures. If these angelic spirits might fall, I said, I,
who am a mere coarsely-natured man, would fling aside my,
thin virtues, and leap once for all into corruption. No; that
whispering, sobbing creature could not be Mary, I asserted ;
but beyond that I had to acknowledge that all was uncertainty
and groping suspicion.
APPROACHING THE MYSTERY. 151

I called up the image of Genevieve to plead to the question
of, Guilty, or not guilty? I thought that I could see, now, in her
strange alternations of girlish pettishness and womanly blan-
dishment, a feverish sensibility to the influence of Somerville
which resembled the disquietude of love. But had he won
the cruel right to say to her, “I know that you are a guilty.
woman?” Her clear smooth brow, frank and fearless eye,
spirited lip, and virginal pride of carriage, answered back in
fine scorn of the degrading supposition, “ Not guilty!” Be-
sides, she was Mary’s sister; the sharer of Mary’s blood,
being, daily life ; and that alone sufficed to strike accusation
dumb.

Was it Mrs. Westervelt ? What faintest shadow of reason
had I for thinking it probable ?

But might not the threatened one have been a servant-
girl? No, it was not at all likely: men of the world do not
talk thus to waiting-maids, and Somerville would have been
the last to waste rhetoric on one: he would have shaken her,
throttled her, struck her, sooner than that. So I said, at least,
for I was furious against him now, and believed him capable
of unmanliness and brutality.

I was unable to solve my hateful enigma. The sphinx
sat immovable, cruel, before me, perpetually repeating his
riddle, and I could not guess it.

Meantime the storm was flapping its oceanic wings over
earth and sea, like a mighty demon in his agonies. The rain
spit with eldritch rage against the panes of the old house,
rushed in heavy patterings athwart the slope of the roof,
gulched and. guttered from the broken eaves, and beat like a
flail upon the long grass in front of the doorway. The wind
clattered the window-frames, roared in the chimneys, and
‘shook until they groaned the branches of the great over-
shadowing maple. Thunder-peals opened growling in the
southwest, advanced booming, clanging along the line of
Shore, and fulminated overhead in prolonged, renewing
erashes, which seemed as if they would crack the air and-
152 — : SEACLIFF.

numb the universal life of nature. Monstrous javelins of
flame struck the dusk bosom of the Sound, appearing to fire
and consume it utterly, so blank of being was the darkness
which. succeeded. In general, a thunderstorm has a charm
for me, but that one was painful and horrible.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII.

A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY.

day, I said to myself that I was reassured ; that I be-

lieved nothing of what I had seen and heard, nothing
of what I had suspected; and that in future nothing should
make me believe. I yent, as it were, through all the dark-
ened chambers of my spirit one after another, and sought
bravely, though more than half in vain, to light them up once
more with something like hope and happiness. It was an
endless, disappointing-task ; it was like letting candles down
into foul, mephitic caverns ; there was a momentary glow, and
then darkness.

Mrs. Westervelt was in the garden alone, pacing pensively
up and down, as men often do and women rarely. Knowing
how fond she was of company and small-talk, I thought that.
her present demeanor betokened earnest reflection, and that
perhaps she had more serious power in her than I had ever
supposed. Possibly, she is brooding over the mystery, I
thought, as I approached and begged leave to join her.

There is something in the position and’ movement of per-
sons in a promenade which permits them to talk more unre-
strainedly, and so more sincerely, than when they are sitting
or standing face to face. The play of the features cannot be
so easily watched, and the quiet exercise aids the action of
the brain.

al I entered the Seacliff grounds early on the following

7*
154 SEACLIFF.

‘“You are very much to.be envied, Mrs Westervelt,’ I
said, intending to charge circuitously upon the mystery.

“ Why so?” she asked, with a start which seemed almost
like a contradiction of my assertion.

“ Because you are so independent of the world for your
means of happiness. Because you have such a charming lit-
tle world. of your own, all wrapped up in green leaves and
roses, and peopled by certain forms that look,—to a stranger,
at least,—like angels.”

Mrs. Westervelt nodded and smiled gepd Huianetilyes per-
haps accepting a trifle of the angelic similitude for herself. ~

“ Yes, the girls are very beautiful,” she replied. “ Mrs.
Van Leer, too, is pretty—don’t you think she is—at times?
Well, perhaps not remarkably ; but Mary and Jenny,—there
is no doubt about them,—they are sweetly beautiful. I do
wish that they could have a better chance to shine in society.
They only see a little life in New York during the winter ;—
Mary not more than twenty or twenty-five parties a year,
really ;—-Genevieve none at all.as yet.. Some people would
think twenty parties enough ; but now it is not, you know.
They ought to go to Saratoga and Newport. A girl misses
a great deal who grows up without seeing Saratoga and New-
port thoroughly. I really pity the poor children when I com-
pare their seclusion with the advantages I had at their age.
And the watering-places are even better now than they were
then, you know.”

“ Superior privileges? More water?” I asked, a little
annoyed at her shallowness when my own thoughts were so
grave. .
“No, not that. Gracious, how you do joke, Mr. Fitz
Hugh! But more society, you know; more chance of seeing
the world. Oh dear me! elderly married woman ‘as I am
now, I have enjoyed myself superhumanly at Saratoga and
Newport, especially at Saratoga. I used to be fearfully gay,
Mr. Fitz Hugh,—a wild, waltzing thing, to be sure, in those
days,—though I suppose you can hardly believe it, now that
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 155

I am a mother of a family and living in such a quiet, retired
way.”

“ Marriage is a noble life,” I said ; “ especially to those who
have children. I imagine that a parent lives youth over
again in his or her offspring, without the follies and conse-
quent regrets of the first youth.” °

“ Yes, there is something pleasant in that, I suppdse,” she
answered. hesitatingly. “Yes, one likes to see the young
ones coming forward. One is able to advise them sometimes.
I really love to aid the girls with my experience,—now really
I do,—notwithstanding that it gives me a dreadful sense of
aging. Dear me! how they would laugh at my good advice,
if they only knew how gay and flighty I used to be!”

“Do they stand in much need of solemn counsel and re-
straint ?” I asked, with what I thought exceeding boldness.
“ Do you ever think of building a convent for them? They
are very young, and youth is heedless, everybody says.”

“Yes, they are young, but not heedless, I think ; not very

unsophisticated, really. They are very clever,” she added,
after a moment of reflection. “You must live with them
years, and feel some responsibility for them, before you can
realize how much talent they have.” (I had realized it be-
fore I had known them a fortnight.) “I don’t feel yet as if
I knew Genevieve thoroughly. Mary is much franker, and
I can understand her better; yes, Mary is perfectly open-
hearted and sincere; the dearest,’ best girl. that ever lived.
‘ As for Jenny, she is too shrewd for me; I never saw such a
-keen, ready-witted girl; but she is not as prudent as her sis-
ter. I hope she will have a good husband and love -him
‘properly. After all, most women need husbands to. steady
them and be their safeguards. I approve of early, mar-
riages,—TI do, really.”

She sighed, and fell back into a pensive, almost melan-
choly revery. It seemed as if she had ttttered the last two
or three sentences to herself, for she did not look at me, nor
have the air of expecting a reply. I made none, and we
‘156 ae SEACLIFF,

-took a turn or two in silence. Her emotion, slight and shal-
‘low as it probably was, interested me for a moment, and I
busied myself in questioning why she gave such an earnest,
sighing approval of early marriages. Was it simply on the
broad ground that she had’ married somewhat late, and that
she felt her life to be a failure? Very likely, for she was not
a woman of profound or discriminating intellect, and an im-
perfectly understood cause would easily account with her for
a half appreciated effect. It was hardly worth while to
spend much effort in divining the motions of'a mind so sen-
sational and illogical as hers. She possessed some of that
social cleverness or tact which seems instinctive in woman,
but otherwise her spiritual calibre was not noticeably larger
than that of her cousins the Van Leers, although, as with
them, the heart was better and stronger than the head. But
whether she distinctly knew it or not, whether she could
state it or not, it was clear that something wore on her spirit
and jaded her life. - Her form had an elegance of proportion
not easily destructible ; her face had been remarkable for that
brunette beauty of regular features and sparkling black eyes,
which is so lasting ; but, for all that, she had faded and was
fading. She frequently drew a long sigh, as if to throw off
the weight of some oppressive revery. Perhaps it was the
soberness and care of married life which galled her ; perhaps
it was disillusion in regard to the happiness of holding a high
position in society; perhaps it was only a natural though
premature decay of health and spirits. An early blight of
beauty is frequently the lot of young women who marry. old
men, and not-necessarily, either, by reason of regret or of ill-
treatment, but through the quiet working of the ceaseless
laws of nature. Well, if this was all, Mrs. Westervelt was
but paying a something for something, and need not be pitied.
The Van Leers, it seems, were parvenus; great golden’ bub-
bles, still strugglin8 towards the surface of society; there
doubtless to shine and break and disappear, like the bubbles
which had preceded them. Mrs. Westervelt had married an
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 157

elderly aristocrat to rise quicker, and was but suffering under
the great and just law of compensation. Alas! I concluded,
if Genevieve is in danger of falling, this is not the woman
who can save her. /

At her proposition we left the garden for the parlor where
-the family had collected. For a time the conversation was
iced and slow, seeming to me in my uneasy abstraction like
the talk of people whose hearts are for the moment far away
from their tongues; but presently Mrs. Van Leer turned to
Genevieve, with her usual quizzing smile, and uttered a few
jesting words which sounded to me like the raillery of a devil.

“So you were very impru—dent last evening,” she drawled.
“You got terribly wet, I hear, while gratifying your passion
for the sublimities of na—ture.”

Somerville glanced at the two women with an expression
of surprise which was almost anger, but quelled himself
instantly, and became the most polished of human icebergs.
Genevieve hesitated before she answered, and then stam-
mered out, with a frail pretence at gayety : “Oh—I—you
heard of my ill luck, cousin Jule? Yes, Byron will be the
death of me, some day. That Jura thunderstorm of his has
bewitched me so that I never can come in when it rains. In
fact, lightning always did enchant me.”

“Ah, By—ron!” repeated the mocking lady. “That
would be very well, Jenny, if you confined yourself to
Childe Harold. But I understand” (in a loud whisper)
“that you have been studying Don Juan lately.”

Did she mean the poem Don Juan, or the living Don Juan
‘who stood there before me? Genevieve bit her lips in undis-

_guisable annoyance, but sought to turn the conversation into
‘nothingness by a jest.

“The truth is that I stayed out because I was jealous.
Sissy here has gained all the hearts of the house by getting
herself run away with; and I wanted to do something to
draw back the general attention; catch cold and have an
interesting cough, for example.”
158 SEACLIFF.

“Oh! I see,” laughed Mrs. Van Leer. “ You wanted the
notice of our new physician. Doctor Somerville, you must
pre—scribe for this poor, distracted child. By the way,
Doctor, did you get wet last evening?”

“TJ, Mrs. Van Leer?” he replied with a smile as cool and
sweet as an iced cream. “I was in my room when the
shower came on. If I had been out, I should have begged
this imprudent young lady’s permission to force her into the
house.” 3

Mrs. Van Leer wanted to continue the raillery; but
either his elegant composure discouraged her, or she saw
some menace in his manner which I could not see; and so
she held her flippant tongue. Genevieve was noticeably
flushed and tremulous, and did not once glance at Somer-
ville. Mrs. Westervelt, who was bending over a bit. of
embroidery in a window-seat, pretending not to heed the
conversation, had become ghastly pale, as if every word
were a lancet and robbed her of some portion of her life-
blood. Bob Van Leer was fast to my button-hole, a beefy
dead weight, perfectly non compos in the presence of all
mysteries. Miss Westervelt had quitted the room a moment.
before, to. bring something which she said was for me, and
which I guessed to be the completed sketch of her horse-
back escapade and rescue. I stood speechless, stunned with
amazement, shame, and anger. Was it Genevieve, then,
who had walked last night in the company of Somerville;
who had sobbed and whispered to him, perhaps upon his
shoulder; who had humbly and vainly implored his pity ;
whom he had so insolently pretended to love; whom he had
called a guilty woman; whom he could threaten to ruin?
The shame seemed to clutch fast hold of me, and to gnaw
my heart as if she were a sister of my own. Does Mrs.
Van Leer half suspect this, and does that pallid shrinking
mother-in-law know it, and is it this which so often flings sor-
rowful shadows over the face of Mary? No, they could not
have seen through Somerville; for, if they had, they surely
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 159

would not permit him to infect the house with his presence.
And yet, it was possible that they might not—dared not—
drive him away. His character, I now feared, was capable
of any wicked extremity; and perhaps he made use of this
very mystery to keep his hold on the unfortunate family: if
they banished him, then he would fulfil his threat of expo-
sure, to the ruin of one and the shame of all.. They were
weak and timid people, these Westervelts; all of them
women by sex or women by nature; all of them together
no match for him.

After these thoughts came a revulsion, and my imagina-
tion flowed back, like an exhausted billow, from the cruel
stony credence upon which it had been driven. I glanced

- around the room from face to face, half believing that some
sensitive heart would understand mine, and some merciful
eye contradict my suspicions; and when Miss Westervelt re-
entered, she seemed to me like a good angel, come to
deliver me from a flight of bewildering demons who whis-
pered the omnipresence of wickedness, the universal, sepul-
_chral hollowness of virtue. There are moments of singular
-excitement, of which the power is perhaps exaggerated to
the memory by their infrequency.

Miss Westervelt’s sketch was a fine one, and I had been
delighted that it was to be mine, but now it pained me. As
I gazed abstractedly at the two rushing figures on horseback,
they seemed to float far back: from.me, to become weird and
unearthly, and to transform themselves into a fiend pursuing
alady. I praised the picture, smiled over it, and inwardly
shrunk from it.

“I am glad you like it,” she said, pleased. “J am sorry
.the frame is so much prettier than the drawing. You told
Genevieve that you meant to frame it; and Mamma said it
must be framed for you.”

In the effort to control my agitation and to express in my
face what was proper, genteel and suited to the exterior
occasion, I must have looked absurd, for Mrs. Van Leer
160 SEACLIFF.

burst out laughing. “Come! do speak, Mr. Fitz Hugh,”
said she. “I never saw a man so dum—founded by a
pres—ent. Is it the first you ever got?”

“No; simply the best,” I returned, taking the sketch into
my own hands and holding it up bravely.

“The best, is it? Well, then, sit down and write some of.
your best. po—etry on it. -Give us an im—promp—tu now,
and Mary will copy it into her al—bum.”

“Much obliged for your offer of her services,” said I.
“ Unfortunately, I have no impromptu prepared, and it
would take two or three days to write one.”

“ How is that?” asked Mrs. Van Leer, simply surprised.
“TI thought an impromptu was a piece spoken right off,
pat.” i)

Her brother burst into a loud laugh which fairly filled
the house with a noise as of vanity and lies.

“ Nobly avowed, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” said he. “ Permit me
to express my cordial admiration of your unflinching mod-
esty.” :

He rose, shook hands with me, and then paced the
room, speaking as follows: “ But I must insist upon reprov-
ing your incautiousness, Fitz Hugh. ‘You blight the bays
of us versifiers ; you dim the halo of swift inspiration which
is supposed to beam from us. Ladies,” (a sweep of his hand,)
“in the presence of our conscientious, our hetoic friend, I
am impelled to confess my sins. Often and often have I
travailed a whole week with a little poem, licked it slowly
into shape with the industry of a Virgil, and then, at some
jovial board, or beneath the romantic shades of some picnic
retreat, have declaimed it as the offspring of the moment.”

Here was another exasperating disclosure, if I had been
in a state of mind fo notice it. Hunter was a rhymester,
then; arival of mine, and perhaps a superior in the favor
of the Muses; a companion in that flight by which I thought
to soar above the heads of my male friends at Seacliff. In
those days I magnified the office of the poet, because I.
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 161.

imagined that I was one of the inheritors of the divine suc-
cession. Happy days! when I believed that I should sit
among the gods of song; in the lowest seat of their glorious.
temple, indeed, but still among them and partaking of their
worship ; not crowned with a whole bay tree, but at least
with a sprig. : °

Just now I did not trouble myself about Hunter’s rival-
ship, and in fact there was no need of it, inasmuch as his
only claim to the bardic character lay in his uncommon, but
not precisely poetic, faculty of invention. He had told me a
day or two before, that he never wrote a line of. poetry in
his life; and it was a mere momentary whimsical puff ‘of
vanity, which led him now to claim the lyric halo. Many
a man wears the cap and bells and walks in motley, who is
capable of winning our respect, and would win it, were he
not anxious to appear what he is not.

The conversation went on around me, a pattering of un-
meaning words, a repetition of irksome sounds, which annoy-
ed me, although I did not attend to it, nor catch a whisper of
its object, because there was a far other and more earnest
dialogue going on within me. Two voices, like two spirits,
were disputing there, one of which was brave and kindly,
saying “ Remain!” the other cowardly and selfish, mutter-
ing, “Away!” The selfish spirit conjured up before me a
house, like that of Seacliff, its doors written over with names
of dishonor at which a crowd of people pointed scornful fin-
gers, while within, peering through the windows, cunning yet
teckless, depraved, cruel, and exulting, sat a demon whose
face bore the likeness of Somerville. I must not stay here,
I concluded; I must break away while I have the power.
And even if to-morrow some uew thought or revelation
should come to detain me, I will still hold my heart in such
iron links of will, that—no matter how mad it ‘may go—it
shall not act out its lunacy. Yes, I tossed whole chains of
stout resolutions ,into my future, just as Xerxes flung his
fetters into the Hellespont. There was extravagance in the
162 SEACLIFF.

feelings which I describe, and there is -absurd. hyperbole,
perhaps, in my rehearsal of them; but it was the natural
exaltation of a young man, stirred up by the supposed _pres-
ence of a great wrong, and unable as yet to state his griefs
calmly even to himself.

Mrs. Westervelt’s little boy danced into the room and
broke my revery. I have not hitherto spoken of this child,
although he was a noticeable member of the family. Only
five years old, he was tall of his age, and in his pretty, pale-
face and clear hazel eyes there was an expression which was
more like the quiet pensiveness of evening than the bright
brisk life of morning. His light brown hair hung in beauti-.
ful ringlets, and his features were as delicate and regular as
those of his half-sisters. He seemed fragile in health, and,
‘like many frail children, premature in intellect. I think
that even at that early age he fashioned fictitious characters
for himself, and acted and talked in accordance with the
fanciful, sentimental individualities thus substituted for his
own. From hour to hour he varied strangely ; sometimes
sitting grave and reflective, with a shadow-like melancholy
on his small face; then bursting out in skipping, singing
gayety, as gleefully clamorous as a mocking-bird. His im-
agination was singularly forward in its development, and
brought him much happiness and many troubles. It wrought
in his little brain all kinds of wonderful phantoms and events,
which his lisping tongue described so fluently, so earnestly,
so solemnly, that strangers took them for verities. Yet his
inventions were not, like those of Hunter, the offspring of
mere vanity. They seemed rather to be incipient poetry;
the necessities of a fancy-too ravenous to be satisfied with
every-day realities; the cravings of a precocious spirit after
unknown emotions; epics which would not wait for the
rhyming faculty.. Very properly the family tried to dis-
courage this dangerous instinct, and his sisters shook their
sage little heads at his stories, while his papa had threatened
to whip him for one or-two which were somewhat too practi-
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 163

cal in their nature. The rod had never alighted on him,
however, for he was the only son, and more than that, the
only child by the second wife.

Willie’s childish glee evaporated at sight of Somerville,
and sidling away from him, he took refuge with his sister
Mary. I had repeatedly noticed this dislike or fear with
which the boy regarded the elegant visitor, and had won-
dered at it, for Somerville often tried to tame him with pretty
words and sugar plums.

‘ © Well, Willie, what are you doing this morning?” said
Mary. “ Why don’t you ride your cane? You may ride it,
if you will go into the veranda.” |
’ He lifted his head out of the folds of her dress, and looked
up in her face with a queer, cunning smile, which hinted at
far maturer objects than toys, and was as much too old for
him as his father’s hat would have been.

“Tl tell you a ’tory,” said he in a whisper, turning a cau-
tious eye upon Somerville.

“No, Willie ; I don’t want to hear your story ; you don’t.
tell true stories; you make them up.”

“Qh, but this is a true ’tory,” he urged. “ This tory is
true, all the way. You hear me tell this tory, and then
n—o—o more. Once there was a gentleman wanted to
marry a laydee, and he couldn’t because she wouldn’t let
him. Then he used to ’cold her, and push her, and ’trike
cher ; and so the laydge used to cry and cry and be sick ; and
then,” (here he paused as if studying out his conclusion,)
“and then the laydee died, and—and the gentleman was
hung.” ;

“Willie! Willie!” exclaimed Maty, laying down. her
work and looking earnestly at him, as if seeking to gather
from his face more than he had said. “You mustn’t make
up stories so; you make up naughty stories, Willie. Papa
has often told you not to do so; don’t you remember it, Wil-
lie?”

She caught. the curious expression in my face, and ad-
164 SEACLIFF.

dressed me: “Mr. Fitz Hugh, you mustn’t mind what this
child says ; he is a little heedless ’tory-teller, and that is all.”

Willie seemed rather abashed and peeped sidelong at me
to see how much he had fallen under my condemnation.
Detecting more fun than displeasure in my countenance, he
brightened up, smiled deprecatingly in his sister’s eyes, and of-
fered another remark. ‘“ Now I’ll tell you something all true.
Mamma has lost her picture, and can’t find it no—where.
She thought Willie took it, but Willie didn’t. It is lost.” . .

“What picture do you mean, Willie?” asked Mary.
“Not the pretty one? Not the one in the gold case?” ~~

“Yes, the pretty one; the painted one, with gold over it,
like a watch; that one. She can’t find it no—where.”

“Mamma has lost her miniature?” inquired Genevieve.
“ Nonsense! why, papa took it, of course.”

“Naturally,” said Somerville. ‘“ Who else has so good a
right to it?” a

“Of course Mr. Westervelt would take it,’ chimed in
Mrs. Van Leer. “I al—ways remind Henry to take mine
with him when he goes away.from me. The poor fellow is
dread—fully absent-minded on that point, and would forget
it every time and so suffer abom—inably, if I didn’t assist
his memory. Isn’t that so, Henry ?”

“No, Jule. I always think of it, you know I do,” re-
turned the heavy creature, surveying her with a fond admi-
ration which made me respect his heart at the expense of his
head. “Jule is forever making fun of me,” he added. “I
have to keep a stiff upper lip.”

“ But there is another missing miniature, which Mr. Wes-
tervelt has not taken,” continued the satirical lady. “It is a
mere tri—fle in value, to be sure; but it is won—derfully
precious, I fancy, to the gentleman who stole it.”

Here I saw Bob let off a wink of triumph and happiness
so emphatic that it ought to have been accompanied bya a re-
port.

“ Really,” pursued Mrs. Van Leer, “what woman ever
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 165

complained before of losing her miniature? That is just
what we want,—to have the men run off with our likenesses,
‘and then bring them back to swap them for the orig—inals.
I al—ways know how matters are going to end when a girl
lets a young fellow get possession of her por—trait.”

Miss Westervelt blushed, but made no other response to
this badinage. Evidently it was a portrait of hers which
had disappeared, and I began to question quite earnestly
whether Mrs. Van Leer referred to the sketch just presented
to me, or to some other which had fallen into the hands of a
rival. By this time Bob could contain his glee and self-
gratulation no longer. He floundered into the hall, executed
three or four steps of a cumbrous polka, and nodded at me
through the doorway with such violence that I had some
hopes that he would break his neck. Sketch in hand, I
slipped out of the parlor and joined the elated blockhead.
He was in the gayest state of mind and body, pounding me
on the shoulders with his great fist, then ramming his hands
elbow-deep in his pockets, then walking up and down chuck-
ling.

“Did you hear about that miniature?” said he. “I’ve
got it. Tm the feller. Come up stairs and look at it.”

I followed him to his room, and sat down in the midst of a
saturnalian confusion of cigar-boxes, meerschaums, ale-bottles,
soda-water-bottles, scent-bottles, loose corks, brushes, gloves,
dressing-cases, hats, caps, boots, slippers, morning-gowns,
coats, pants, foils, boxing-gloves, pistols, fowling-pieces, fish-
lines, &c. &c., all spread over the bed, the chairs, the trunks,
the tables, the wash-stand, the floor.

- “ Got a lot of things here,” observed Bob. “TI never let
the chambermaid meddle with ’em; she gets ’em out of their
places. Upset them traps on the floor and take the chair;
take a cigar too, won’t you? I’m going to. I haven’t had
my first smoke yet. I was just about to light up when I
heard you come in, and run down to see you. I say, you get
up here bright and early every morning, don’t you, though ?”
166 SEACLIFF.

I accepted a regalia, for I felt that I needed a sedative to
endure the sight of that portrait in his possession.

Unlocking a trunk, he took out of it a little package, care-

fully wrapped in a fine cambric handkerchief, unfolded it and
exhibited a daguerreotype in a well-remembered case’ of
crimson velvet. It was the one which I had seen. and cov-
eted on the day of the horseback escapade. The first look
at the face was granted to himself, and was enjoyed with a
chuckle of satisfaction, a sigh of supreme contentment, which
made me envy him, hate him, admire him, and pity him,
-altogether. He passed it to me as carefully and reverently
as he would have handled the Koh-i-noor. . Unconsciously
I rose to receive it, and then sat quickly down again, for
either the sudden rising or the sight of that fair face in his
hands, made me dizzy.

“ An’t it pretty?” said he with another sigh and chuckle.
“T tell you I am getting my courage up, old feller. I hooked
that, and carried it off right before her eyes, though it scared
me awfully.to do it. But I knew I must begin to show grit
sometime or other, or I never should make any headway.
She made up all kinds of pretty pretences that she wanted it
back again, but Sis told me not to be scared, and I held on
like a good one. Glad I did, by Jove! an’t you, old feller ?
The fact is, a man mustn’t believe the girls half the time
when they say No, or he’ll act like a fool, and they'll despise
him. I tell you, I begin to think there’s nothing the girls
hate so much as a fool,—a regular bashful fool ;—they like
a confounded rascal better than a confounded fool, if the ras-
cal has only got the brated and the brains and the manners’;
they do so.’

“JT am afraid you are correct,” said I. Of course, Iwas
thinking of the rascal who pervaded ‘the mystery of Seacliff.

“Jt an’t right though, is it?” resumed Bob. ' “ A fool may
be a good feller after all, and have a first-rate heart. But for
all that they can’t stand him unless he has the brass and the
brains and the manners.”
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 167

The idea of a fool having brains and manners seemed par-
adoxical, but I did not think it worth while to interrupt my
friend, and, besides, a contradiction might have seemed like
a personality.

“ An’t it beautiful?” he resumed, reaching out to take back
the miniature. “You have a picture of her, too, in that
little drawing there. You needn’t feel anyways delicate on
my account, Fitz Hugh, about keeping that. I’m glad she
worked it for you, and I’d rather you should have it than not,
for you deserve so much. I did want it, though, till I got
hold of this other. Now I’m perfectly satisfied. I say,
wouldn’t you like to swap, hey?”

“ No, I think not,” said I. “ Don’t you see, you dull youth,
that this sketch is worth a hundred of your daguerreotype.”
I broke out on him with a sort of vindictiveness, because he
had annoyed me by his chuckling confidence, his assump-
tion of a monopoly in Miss Westervelt, and his stupid im-
pudence in committing that sacrilegious theft of her portrait.
“Don’t you know that that daguerreotype was done by a
hired artist or artist’s apprentice, while this sketch is the
product of her own brain, and the labor of her own hands?
Don’t you understand that this expresses something ? that it
means gratitude? Don’t you perceive that it is a token of
comprehension between us? that it is a link for memory?
Besides, it was not stolen; it was her own gift, devised by
her; it came freely and unsolicited. What do you think of
that, my boy ?”

A wild stare, an open mouth, and two red cheeks showed
me that his thoughts were astonishment and dismay. “What!
she—you,” he gasped. “ Old feller !—you don’t mean to say
that you—you are courting her?”

I had been too bold, too frank ; and I turned coward and
hypocrite again. What if he should take alarm, make a des-
perate rush to New York, and offer to lend the needy father
fifty thousand or so, on condition of an early marriage with
the daughter !
168 SEACLIFF.

“Nonsense!” said I. “ Don’t scare yourself with a shadow,
Bob. You are welcome to the- eae renernS and to the
original—when you get her.”

“Oh!! well! I’m glad you an’t going in for her, old chap.
You scared me awfully, though, for.a minute. I tell you,
Fitz Hugh, you wouldn’t say them kind of things if you
knew how they cut me. I wish you wouldn’t do it again,
that’s a good feller!”

“T won't,” said I, and resolved to keep my promise, in-
jurious as it might be to Bob’s interests. I left the room a
sadder man than I had entered it, but not a wiser, for jealousy
had shattered all my resolutions of caution. ‘Does not every
sane adult know the sanctity with which a heart invests the
object of its adoration? It wishes to make no proselytes to
that religion; desires no concourse of fellow-worshippers ;
asks for no high priest, no mediator. Above all does it shrink
and groan within itself when it sees another’s hand venture
near that image which itself only dares to admire from a
distance. ‘Yet, when it sees this, the idol seems to become
doubly worshipful. Where now was my resolution of living
the life of an icicle at Seacliff? Melted in a furnace hotter
than that of affliction. Only to hear Robert Van Leer claim
Miss Westervelt, made me feel that I could not give her up,
no matter what. might be contained in the cloud of mystery
which shadowed ‘her sister. And then this other thought
moved me: that I was not yet certain of any error in Gen-
evieve; that by leaving Seacliff I should only draw a veil
between myself and the truth; and that thus I might do
lifelong injustice to one who was perhaps as spotless as the
angels. Furthermore I argued to'myself that I ought to
remain, in order to be the enemy, and, if possible, the con-
queror of the vampire. Yes, I concluded, I will stay and
guard Genevieve; not suspecting her of any evil, though
watching her as closely as if I were sworn to suspicion ; but
tracking this man, spying out his very purposes, ee him
and driving him hence.
A CHANGE IN THE MYSTERY. 169

~ Oh, Youth! how magniloquent it is, even in its sentiments !
how rhetorical even before it has spoken! And yet, thank
God for enthusiasm, the poetry of life, the prophet which
shows us men and acts, not as they are in the present, but as
they may be in the great future. Without the atmosphere,
the skies would be blackness ; without enthusiasm, life might
be a colorless gloom.

OKS,
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII.

GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE.

RESOLVED to let no grass grow under my feet
in the path of duty. I said that I would take

Genevieve in hand immediately, examine her, cross-
examine her, hint at my suspicions, watch for every start of
consciousness, and, if possible, terrify her from the evil way
into which I feared that she had entered. All that day, and
again that evening, I sought an opportunity to speak with her
alone. At last, just as daylight was changing to moonlight,
like an allegro dying into an adagio, I found her sitting on
one of the benches which edged the cliff, gazing far away
into the soft southern horizon, and listening between her
thoughts to some droning piscatorial tale of Robert Van
Leer’s. This is alone, I thought, for Bob does not count in
conversation, except as a sort of background of silence. I
would have preferred a full noontide on her features, in .order
to note better their expression; but if the imperfect light of
the hour was a friend to her face, it was also a friend to mine,
and one that I needed. In truth, I trembled a little, and felt
much more like a culprit than like a prosecuting attorney.
Standing near her, and a little on one side, so that I could
command a view of her aristocratic profile, I studied her for
a moment, seeking some downcast look of unworthiness, some
jaded air of concealment, some terror of discovery, some
flippant bravado of guilt. There was no such evil visitor in
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 171

that young paradise; there was naught but intelligence, feel-
ing, spirit, and the calm pride of self-respect. Looking up
at me presently with a wide-open serene eye, she broke the
back of one of Bob’s creeping sentences by saying, “ Never
mind about the other sharks, Robert. I want to ask Mr.
Fitz Hugh what he is thinking of.”

“Nothing,” replies Mr. Fitz Hugh, as much abashed as a
schoolboy detected in committing a roguery when he should
have been committing his multiplication-table.

“Qh, oh! how much reflection people have given to that
subject! I suppose, however, that nothing means a revery,—
some poetical illusion, perhaps.”

. “Exactly,” said I. “I have been troubled with an illusion
lately ; a very bad one; a perfect incubus, in fact.”

“Tf it is so disagreeable, what makes you entertain it?
Why don’t you turn it off and get a more amiable one? ‘Or,
if you can’t do that, why don’t you give up such intoxicating
things altogether,—take the pledge, as the temperance men
say?”

“ Perhaps I can’t do either. Perhaps such changings and
resignations are not within my power. It is a theory of
mine that every man has his inevitable illusion. One re-
spectable middle-aged person of my acquaintance contents
himself with the chimera that his neighbor, the starveling
apothecary, is in secret immensely rich. He has no reason
for this whimsical article of faith; he holds it apparently by
instinct, as he does the knowledge of his own identity, and
about as firmly ; dispute it, and you are sure of encountering
a long argument, of which nothing is comprehensible but the
bare words, and those only as parts of speech, not as parts of
logic. You see, no man knows his own illusion ; for, if he
did, he would drop it. As to mine, I have the misfortune to
believe that it is sober truth.”

“Poor man! It seems to be a dreadful one, really. It
quite unmans you. Do you suppose that your mind is
sound?” laughed Genevieve.
172 SEACLIFF.

“Perhaps you ain’t well,” observed Bob, with a sympathy
which, though stupid, was sincere. “That’s it, old feller,
depend upon it. I tell you when I’ve eaten anything that
don’t agree with me, I get the blues the worst sort.”

“Oh, Robert!” exclaimed Genevieve. “ Accuse a poet
of dyspepsia! What a horror!” oe

“Not so bad an idea,” said I. “I fancy that a great
many awful phantasms of the brain do get into it from the
stomach. In fact, there is such a thing as a dyspeptic
mind. Nothing digests healthily in it; acetous fermentation
ensues ; the man is permanently soured.”

“ Just so,” assented Bob. “I know a feller who has the
hardest kind of dyspepsia. He smokes too many cigars, and
he has awful low spirits. I tell him to leave off smoking ;
but, you see, he can’t do it. ‘hat’s always the way with a
feller ; when he’s got into a habit it sticks to him like tar
and feathers.”

“Do you want to know what does the whole mischief?”
Tasked. “Tt is the first cigar.”

“Not a bit of it,’ retorted Bob. “My first cigar made
me sick, and made me say I’d never smoke another,—though
I have smoked a lot since then.”

“ Still, it was the first cigar that began the habit,” said I,
persisting in my puerile philosophy, for want of something
better to say. “If there had been no first, there could have
been no second.” ;

“T don’t see that,” replied Bob obstinately. “I could have
smoked the second just as easy as the first.”

“Never mind, Robert, you'll see it all some day,” inter-
posed Genevieve. “I want Mr. Fitz Hugh to go on. I
suppose he is only speaking of cigars figuratively. He is a
poet, and uses things as the symbols of thoughts. Please to
proceed, Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

“1 mean to say,” continued I, “that it is the first step in
evil which is the father of all the others and of the final ruin.
I don’t pretend to have discovered this truth, nor to be par-
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 173

ticularly worthy of preaching any great moral truth, even
supposing that I had invented it. At the same time, I wish
I were fit so to preach. I believe that I should not have to
go far to find those who greatly need a sermon.”

I faltered here, for I thought that I was pushing allu-
sion to the brink of accusation. Genevieve did, in fact,
stare at me, but her face expressed only surprise and then
curiosity.

“Who? Mr. Fitz Hugh,” she asked. “ Who is it that has
just taken the first step down hill? NotI, you may be sure.
Iam an old offender; perverse and hardened in it; no novice
in naughtiness, not I.. Is it Robert? Ah, Robert! what
have you got on your conscience? Do confess him, Mr. Fitz
Hugh, and give him absolution if he is penitent. Come,
Robert, out with it.”

“ Out with what?” says Bob. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I say, Fitz Hugh, what’s to pay? What's
the joke?”

“No joke at all,” returned Genevieve. “Don’t you see
how dreadfully serious he is? Who do you mean, Mr. Fitz
Hugh? Is it papa? Are you thinking about his unlucky
speculations? I wish you could say something so very wise
and so very terrible that it would make him stop speculating
forever.”

Iwas disconcerted by her gayety, and fell helplessly into
the new track which she had opened for the conversation.
“ You are very clever,” I said. “I hope you will not blame
me if I think it unfortunate that your father has acquired a
taste for speculation. It is not a profitable acquisition. In
the long run, the chances are that he will lose.” ,

“Make it a short run,” observed Genevieve ; “it would be
just as true, and more striking. But how comes it so? I
never heard any one explain the mystery.”

“ Why, it is very clear that many men must pay for blanks
in order that money enough may be accumulated to furnish
one lucky adventurer with a prize.”
174 SEACLIFF.

“Only rich men ought to speculate,” inferred Genevieve.
“ Poor men can’t afford the risk.”

“Nor rich men either,” said I, still hammering at this sub-
ject because I knew not how to get back to the one nearest
my heart. “I assure you that if I were, a millionaire I
would not risk the first thousand in speculation. I know very
well that, if I lost, I should most probably send off a second
thousand on some wild-goose chase after the first. That
would be the beginning of the end. Once let this devil of
speculation into your head, and it is sure to run violently
down some‘steep place into the sea. I saw a boy fishing in
the creek, yesterday. He caught his hook in a root, thought
he had a bite, gave a triumphant haul, and left his line under
water. Aha! said I, you are a speculator.”

“ Did he lose his line?” inquired Bob, with a born fisher-
man’s sympathy. “Too bad, by Jove!”

All this time I felt like a man in a railroad-car, who has
found that the train does not stop at his village. I had got
on this topic of speculation, and could not discover how to
stop it, nor how to bring it round to that mystery for the sake
of which I had sought the interview. “The boy suffered a
real misfortune,” I continued desperately ; “ whereas it is not
always thus with the unlucky speculator. Often he is not a
whit poorer after failure than before; he has only learned
that he is not as rich as he supposed himself to be; a very
unpleasant discovery, to be sure, but not exactly a calamity.
Let us suppose a parallel case of a man who gets merry with
wine, and fancies himself to be Emperor of Siam, lord of the

forty golden umbrellas, and so forth; but, on coming to his

sober senses, finds that all that Siamese business was a mis-
conception. Has this individual any right to bewail his lost
greatness, and- demand his forty umbrellas again? On the
whole, we ought to be thankful to Providence for sending
these occasional pressures to squeeze out the nonsense, and
vanity, and lies, which are perpetually soaking into society.”

Did ever a preacher wander farther from his text? I felt
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 175

that I was ridiculous, although I knew that Genevieve could
not see it, because she was necessarily ignorant what a gap
there was between my words and my thoughts. I made a
short tack, and steered resolutely into the very breakers of
the mystery. “I hope you caught no cold from being out
last night,” I said.

She gave me a side glance, and then swept the horizon
with her eyes in an pbsentaninded way before slfe answered.
“No, none at all, thank you

“Tt was a fearful storm,” I resumed, while my temples be-
gan to throb as if the tempest had entered into them. “It
was very reckless in you to expose yourself,—without cause,
too.” .

“Of course. But then there’s no accounting for girls, as my
old nurse used to say. We are permitted to have freaks, you
know. Why not? If Providence permits it, why not men?”

“To be sure,—to a certain degree. But when a freakish
fancy risks the ruin of health, or—or anything else of price-
less value, the owner of that fancy ought to shut it up, chain
it, chain herself, rather than indulge it.”

“Very likely,” she returned, beginning to bite her nails,
and then drawing her hand from her mouth suddenly as if
recollecting herself.

“T know of some one else who was abroad last night,” I
said with a great effort.

“Who?” she asked, turning toward me abruptly, and, as
I thought, eagerly.

“Myself,” I meant to have said; but really I could not;
the word died in my throat. After a moment of hesitation, I
replied, “ The principalities and powers of the air.’

“Do you think I was in their company?” she asked with
alaugh. “Do you suspect me of being a witch and having
dealings with the principalities?”

“Yes ¢ I do suspect it; I have grave reason to believe it.”

She clearly did not understand me, for she laughed again,
carelessly.
176 SEACLIFF.

“T say, what’s the excitement?” inquired Bob. “ What
the Old Harry are you talking about?”

“You have just named the personage, Robert,” replied
Genevieve.

“The devil? You don’t say so! Well, now I'll tell you
the greatest joke. When I was a little chug, I used to think
the devil got up all the thunder and lightning ;‘I did so, and
you can ask Henry if I didn’t. And it was very natural I
should think so, seems to me. Lightning never does any
good, that I can see; it only does harm, kills people, sets fire
to houses and splits trees; and then it looks so tremendously
red-hot, you know.” -

“ Cotton Mather entertained the same views,” said I. “He
thought that the devil had much to do with thunder-storms,
especially as so many churches were struck by lightning in
his day.”

“Did he, though?” inquired Bob, respectfully. “ Well,
who was Cotton Mather ?”

“One of the old puritan divines of Massachusetts. Au-
thor of —”

“Qh, I know,—one of the blue-noses. No, hang it! not a
blue-nose; that’s a Nova Scotia man. The fact is, I always
get the blue-noses and the blue laws, and the blue stockings
all mixed up together. Now, I say, Fitz Hugh, you’ve read
a great deal and travelled a great deal, and I want to ask
you one question. What does the devil keep up the fight for
when he knows he can’t whip? What’s the use of it, and
why don’t he stop it?”

“Bravo, Robert!” exclaimed Genevieve, throwing her
head back in laughter until the moon shone full upon the fair
features, revealing with a light that was almost saintly their
childlike glee and purity. “What a theologian you are! for
really a man must have some idea of theology merely to ask
that question. Do try to answer him, Mr. Fitz Hugh. I
have often puzzled over that point myself. Oh, yes, you can
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 177

answer him, too,—a man that has read and travelled as much
as you have,—for shame to pretend ignorance !”

“Light up, Fitz Hugh, and pull away,” added Bob, en-
couragingly.

The evil one was not so far from my subject, I thought,
and so I struck into his trail with some spirit. “Why, thé
truth of it probably is, that Lucifer is a grossly self-deceived
individual with regard to his chances. The more immoral a
mind is, the more liable to deception on moral questions. A
thoroughly bad man, for instance, holds that everybody else
is at heart as bad as himself, and, if not so savingly, is more
firmly convinced of the doctrine of total depravity than the
most devout Calvinist. Moral insanity, in short, generates
more or less of mental insanity. Now, the devil, being infi-
nitely wickeder than any human creature can be, is in pro-
portion infinitely more subject to delusions in regard to the
comparative extent and power of the two principles of good
and evil. He perpetually expects to see the entire universe
coming over to his party. More than this, he believes that
at this very moment every saint, and even every angel, is at
bottom a hypocrite. He has fully expected to catch every
tempted, worried, but praying and victorious pilgrim, that ever
trod the shadowy valley and passed between the lions and
forded the dark river and entered with noise of hymns into
the golden city. Every time that a martyr has witnessed a
good confession and risen from the stake on fiery pinions to
the foot of the great white throne, this irreclaimable victim of.
moral insanity has been as much astonished, and his ardent
expectations have been as much outraged, as if the cireum-
stance had never happened before. I don’t approve, by the
way, of those ascriptions of immense power which are made
to this personage by some imaginative preachers. If he is in
good faith and without a metaphor, the prince of this world,
it seems to me that we are bound to treat him with that rev-
erence which St. Paul recommends us to render unto all
who are in authority. Now I say it without shame, and I

8*
178 SEACLIFF.

say it firmly, that I have no reverential feelings towards the
devil.”

“Nor I neither, by Jove!” broke in Bob enthusiastically.
“T tell you what, old feller, that’s first-rate. I say, Fitz
Hugh, he must be an infernal old ass. But you’ve done him
brown.”

“ He is usually considered black,” said I. “But I’m glad
you like my thesis. My tutor didn’t. It’s a scrap from one
of my compositions.”

“No! by Jove! is it, though? Well, I thought you was
spinning it off pretty hifalutin for common talk, now. But
it’s splendid anyhow. And the tutor didn’t like it? Well, he
must have: been about as great a fool as the devil. How-
ever, these private tutors seldom are great men.”

“But I have another way of explaining Lucifer,” said I.
“You may call it my shorter catechism. I never hear him
mentioned but what I think of Sairy Gamp’s Mrs. Harris.
T don’t believe there is any such person.”

“You don’t!” exclaimed Bob, who was not versed in the
later constructions of theology, and to whom this declaration
seemed a species of atheism. “ What do you think, Jenny?”
he added, looking all abroad, as if his moral ideas had lost
their accustomed guardian.

“T think that Mr. Fitz Hugh used to write pretty clever
compositions,” said she. ‘“ He hasn’t improved so very won-
derfully since he got to be an Idler in Italy. Come, Robert,
give us something of yours now. Let’s hear a bit of your
valedictory.”

“Oh, Jenny, I didn’t take no valedictory,” returned Bob
humbly. “No, no; couldn’t come that; didn’t kill myself
with trying, either. By the way, it always struck me as queer
that they didn’t have five or six valedictories to a class, so as
to give more fellers a chance. But then there’s the trouble
that they would all have to say about the same thing, which
would be tedious.”

“ Let them all speak together,” proposed Genevieve.
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 179

“Ah, but then you couldn’t understand what any of them
said,” objected Bob.

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be tedious,” she replied. “On the
contrary, it would be grand fun to see ten valedictorians, all
spouting at once and each trying to drown his neighbor, like
so many fire-engines playing on each other. I am sure the
ladies would be amused; and, if they liked it, of course no-
body else would dare complain.”

“Oh, but that wouldn’t do, no how,” decided Bob impera-
tively. :

“Never mind, then. But give us one of your compositions,”
said Genevieve.

“Now, Jenny, I’d like to please you, but I can’t do it,”
responded the unsuspicious youth. “The fact is, I scarcely
remember any of my own compositions ; the biggest part of
them was done for me by other fellers; and I found them in ci-
gars, you know. Oh, I'll tell you the greatest joke. I handed
in a piece to the Professor one day, thinking I had pleased
him that time; for it was a first-rate one, if Ido say it. Well,
when I went after it, he asked me how long it took me to
write it. Says I, it took me two days. Says he, you are
smart; it took me a week. Well, Jenny, I don’t suppose you
ever felt so flat in all your life as I did in that single minute.
The way it happened was this: I gave Dick Carter, a Con-
necticut feller, three bunches of real Figaro Regalias to write
mea piece. Well, Dick, instead of getting it out of his own
head, went and copied it out of Harper, and got hold of one
of the Professor’s own articles. I tell you I cut Dick’s assist-
ance after that. He wan’t original enough for me.”

I had been driven clear off my course, and was puzzling
how I should get back again. I stood gazing at Genevieve,
who laughed heartily at Bob’s whimsical tale of misfortune,
and whose merry eyes met mine without faltering, or even
seeming to wonder at my unusual gravity. I had not laughed
at all during the interview, although I had said things which
bore a semblance of gayety. Is she innocent, and am I a
180 SEACLIFF.

monomaniac, the fool of my own imagination ? I questioned.
I uncovered my forehead to the southwest wind,—blowing
straight from the Iudian paradise, humid, mellow, calming,
sweet as the breath of seraphs,—and looked away over the
silver-rippled ‘Sound, oceanic in moonlight, seeking to bring
Nature in some way to my aid, and thus escape out of my
bounded helplessness. Let me make one more effort to probe
her soul into expression, I thought, and then, if there comes
to her face no response of self-accusation, let me clear her
utterly and forever. But I could think of nothing to say
that would fit my purpose, except another allusion to the
evening of the tempest.

“Really, that storm seems to have taken a strong hold
upon your mind,” she replied, looking at me rather more
gravely than hitherto.

“Well, it might!” said I, my voice sinking, in spite of
me, to a whisper that was absolutely theatrical. “I was out
in it.”

“Were you? Where?” she asked, rising and bringing
her face so near mine that I could observe every light and
shadow of her emotions, and see that she was not only atten-
tive but anxious. I watched her steadily while I replied,
“What if I were here in this garden ?”

“Here! You! What, here?” she repeated. “Oh, you
are joking. Why, I was in the garden; I was, really. If
you had been here, I should have seen you, I think.”

“ Perhaps it did not occur to you to look,” said I. “ Per-
haps you were too much occupied with something else.
You did not see me? ‘Well, I may have been here, for all
that.”

“ What, Fitz Hugh!” broke in Bob, loudly, regardless of
the fact that we had been whispering. “ Was you really out
here last night in that regular pour? why didn’t you come in
and sleep with me?”

“Oh! that’s deli—cious! That’s su—perb! What a dis-
covery !” exclaimed a voice behind us.
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 181

Before we could turn, Mrs. Van Leer bounded upon us,
holding up her dress to a very unnecessary altitude as she
crossed the flower-beds. She laughed outrageously at first,
and then shook her little fist in my face with simulated
anger.

“T have found out the culprit,” said she. “Oh, what a
detective Iam! What a sly rogue he is! Really; I thought
it was Mr. Somerville; but now I shall have to clear him
and put you,—yes, you, sir,—in the irons. Ah! you coax
my little inexperienced cousin out in a thunder-storm, and
get her wet to the skin. What do you think will be done
with you, sir? Don’t you know that you ought to go to the
penitentiary ? Or do you believe that you can get off on the
plea of insanity ?”

“ Nonsense, cousin Jule!” said Genevieve. “Don’t be
silly! I didn’t see him. I don’t believe he was here at all.
I was alone.”

“Precisely ; it is perfectly true,” added J. “I did not
see Miss Genevieve. In fact I haven’t. said that I was
here.”

“Oh! oh! now then I have caught you,” answered. Mrs.

Van Leer with another burst of glee. “Those stories don’t
hang together. You were here, and didn’t see her; and
then, again, you wan’t here. Don’t you see that you con-
tra—dict yourself? Come along; come right along with
me. I can’t have any collusion between the accused par-
ties.”
She caught my arm and dragged me away. It would have
been ungallant to resist, and besides it would have been use-
less to remain, for I could not have prosecuted my examina-
tion of Genevieve in her presence. Conscious that I had
learned nothing, I resigned myself to my ill-success and to
Mrs. Van Leer, who hurried me, chattering all the way,
down the shrubbiest walks of the garden, and stopped in a
grape arbor where we were concealed alike from the house
and from our late companions.
182 SEACLIFF.

“ Now tell me all about it,” said she, “Confess the whole
extent of your wickedness. Tell me what made you do s0.
Perhaps I shall take pity on you, and get you par—doned at
head-quarters.”

“Thank you for nothing, ma’am. I am as innocent as
these hollyhocks. If I was out in the rain, it was because,
like them, I couldn’t help it.”

“Oh, what a veg—etable you are! What a green young
sprout! ‘What a little innocent po—sy. Very well; I be-
lieve all you say; you didn’t mean to get wet; no, no. It
must have been ve—ry embarrassing. These naughty show-
ers are a dread—ful damper on coquetry, aren’t they? But
now, tell me, did you flirt ve—ry badly? ‘You shouldn’t
have done so, you know, for Genevieve is a mere girl, and
not a match for you. Why didn’t you take one of your
age? why didn’t you take me, for exam—ple ?”

“Don’t! don’t! Mrs. Van Leer!” I remonstrated. “I
didn’t flirt, I do assure you. I didn’t see Genevieve. The
whole thing is a mere blunder of Bob’s. I didn’t say that I
was in the garden. I was merely supposing the case to
Genevieve in order to pique her curiosity and tease her. I
am as much astonished that she should have been in the
garden last night as you can be.”

“Oh! that isn’t friend—ly, now; that isn’t a bit gal—lant,
now,” she replied, in a tone of mock reproach. “ Don’t you
know that when a woman solicits a man’s confidence, she does
him a fa—vor, and that the least answer he can make isa
full confession? Well, I must buy your se—cret then.
What can I do for you? Really, I would give almost
any—thing to get a full disclosure out of you. What are
you going to ask for your mystery. Now don’t be too hard
upon me.”

She had kept hold of my arm all the while, and she now
leaned upon it heavily, while her manner became still more
frolicsome and coquettish. I must declare modestly that she
seemed to me less bent upon penetrating my secret than upon
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 188

tantalizing me into a flirtation, as I had repeatedly seen her
try to allure Somerville; and I half forgot my previous em-
barrassment in this new one, which was ridiculously per-
plexing.

“T do solemnly aver, Mrs. Van Leer, that I have nothing
to tell,” I asseverated, as she looked up in my face and pouted
her lips with a tempting pretence of sulkiness. “I have no
connection with last night’s mystery, if there was a mystery.
I was not even out in the rain. I watched the storm, shel-
tered and peaceable, in the doorway of my boarding-house.
Besides, if I had a secret, you, a married lady, would not give
a toss of your fan to buy it.” ,

“Oh, you don’t know us women,” she replied. “We are
insa—tiably inquisitive. Marriage satisfies only half our
curiosity. Come, I would do won—ders to persuade you
to confess.”

She brought up her right and, joined it to her left and
clasped both together over my arm. “ Now what makes us
women love scan—dal so?” she continued. “ What makes
us willing to give so much more for a bit of fresh, hot tittle-
tattle than a man would do?”

“Do you really want to know?” I asked, glad to change
the conversation. “ For, if you do, I think I can tell you.”

« By all means tell me, and after that you will tell me the
secret. Let us walk down this shady path where we shall
not be interrupted.”

“Listen then. A woman cares more for scandal than a
man, principally because her mind and her time are less
filled up than his by serious matters. Her occupations, such
as embroidery, sewing, and housewifery, are not sufficient to
distend her intellectual capacity, while they are often just
sufficient to keep her from severe reading and reflection.”

“It seems very likely, although a trifle per—sonal,” said
Mrs. Van Leer.

“ Now, then, here is a vacuum,” I went on; “but Nature
abhors vacuums, and fills them all as fast as they occur; she
184 SEACLIFF.

is a conscientious dentist and allows of no cavities. Well, the
cheaper and handiest material for stqiing a hollow head is
gossip.”

“Go on, Mr. Flat—terer. I understand wip we love to
hear gossip ; now tell me why we love to talk it.”

a Change the figure then. Don’t you know that a tumbler
full of air is much more sonorous than one wand is full of
water, or lead, or gold?”

“How deli—cious! A tamale full a gold ee eee
Mrs. Van Leer.

“ Well, scandal is the most’ ethereal of mental ent 3
a wind that blows nobody any good, but still only wind. Of.
course the lady’s intellectual tumbler, having little or nothing
in it but this same volatile pnd is patomehinely resonant.
Do you comprehend ?” es

“ Per—fectly. All that gets into my empty ead as: sally
as so much tittle-tatile. You are mon—strous civil, by
the way, to tell me these pretty things. But never mind
about that now ; just listen to one question. - Don’t: you think
it is an abom—inable ‘shame for the men to keep us in such
a sphere, that our only means of filling our craving noddles is
to pour them brim full of slan—der? Don’t: you believe
that the strong-minded’ women are right? Don’t you think
that we ought to stand up on a level with men ?”

“Of course. Why don’t you?’ Why didn’t you grow six
feet high, as I did? What made you stop a when - om
head had got up to my shoulder : pee as

“Ts my head just up to your shoulder?” dla; . opie
“Really I think it must be higher. Let us meas—aure.”
She laid her head against the shoulder in question, raised it
again, gave me a glance of provoking coquettishness, and
sighed. “How hum—bling!” she said. “I admit my lit-
tleness. Please to goon; take advantage of your superiority.
What about the strong-minded women ?”

Oh, you veteran, seasoned, reckless flirt! I thought. I
wish your Potiphar was here to make you let go of me.
GENEVIEVE AND COUSIN JULE. 185

My voice was getting quite husky with embarrassment, but,
clearing it with a hem, (which made her laugh,) I launched
desperately into my subject. “A strong-minded—ha—wo-
man, indeed. JI don’t believe they are serious in their pro-
fessions. I don’t believe they really wish to equalize the
two sexes. If they do, why don’t they begin at the bottom
and set things right in the lower animal kingdom, before they
meddle with the privileges of the human male? Why don’t
they get up a charitable society for sewing manes on to the
lionesses, and giving the peahens as splendid tails as the
peacocks ?”

“ Perhaps we don’t want to meddle with the dirty birds
and beasts,” interrupted my companion.

“Tf they could only induce the male parrot not to wear
finer feathers than the female,” I prosecuted, “ and persuade
the cock not to crow louder or fight better than the pullet,
we should doubtless be shamed into following the modest
example so set us by our inferiors. We should reduce our
stature to five feet two, speak treble, and be afraid of
thunder.”

“ Oh, disgust—ing!” said she. “I wouldn’t have such a
man about me.”

“ Exactly ; of course you wouldn’t. Now, don’t you see,
Mrs. Delilah, how absurd it is in you to want to cut off the
strength-bearing locks of Samson ? ”

“Ah, but zits Mrs. Delilah doesn’t want to cut them off.
The most she can imagine herself as wishing is to have just
such locks herself.”

“Well raise them, then; but after you have got them, be
contented ; don’t expect us to admire you then for the deli-
cate curls of grace and womanliness that you have thrown
away. At best, Mrs. Van Leer, I am afraid that your new
hair would be only a wig. Now wouldn’t you much rather
have a husband ?”

“To be sure I would, or a beau, either,” she replied, bend-
ing her head as if in laughter, so as to let her braids sweep
my shoulder.
186 SEACLIFF.

Driven to recklessness, teased beyond the limits of civil
endurance, I turned upon the indiscreet yet really cold-
blooded creature who hung at my elbow, and uttered certain
remarks, perfectly proper, I maintain, in themselves, but so
odious to the average female sense of propriety on this side
of the Atlantic, that I have been counselled not to report
them in these pages. I spoke of what I considered the true
sphere of woman; I enlarged especially upon the pains,
pleasures, and glories of maternity; and I expressed myself
in the plainest, bluntest words that are to be found in Eng-
lish dictionaries. As I went on, I discovered that the most
heedless of hoydens may be a prude, just as the most boister-
ous of bullies may be a coward. Mrs. Van Leer took off
one hand from my arm, then the other, and finally stood a
full yard away from me, although she laughed heartily.

“That will do,” she said. “I fancy that you have ex-
hausted the subject. You are a man of the world, I see. I
have a great mind to tell my husband how sau—cy you are.
Never mind, though; I will be discreet, if you will. Come
into the house now, and let us know all about the mys—tery.
Do!”

“JT have no mystery,” returned I. “ Good-night.”

Well, I had pryed but a very short way into the mind of
Genevieve ; but does it not often happen thus, and are not
our failures as edifying as our successes? If a man should
tell only the good luck that befalls him, he would make a very
absurd and incomprehensible tale indeed of his experiences.
It would be a Chinese picture : all lights and no shadows;
bright, flat, and false.
 

 

 

CHAPTER XIV.

A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING.

ARLY after breakfast the next morning, I saw Mrs.
iG Van Leer prowling up and down the beach in front
of my lodgings, ostensibly looking for sea-shells, but
casting various sidelong glances toward my windows. She
had perhaps got over her little alarm of the previous evening,
and was willing to try another round or two of flirtation.
Please to wait, thought I, until Beau Somerville arrives, or
somebody else who has nothing on his mind, and would like
to be amused by a trifle; and accordingly, she waited, while I
watched her tranquilly through an opening between my cur-
tain and the window-frame. She held her skirts very high,
as if to keep the dry sand from soiling them, and showed
such fresh finely-filled stockings, such small neatly-fitting
bootees, as would have excited a sensation even in that para-
dise of the femme bien chaussée, the Boulevard des Italiens.
Ma Treat came to the window once in process of making
up my room, and turned away with a sniff that was vigorously
significant. ;
“What do you think of that lady?” said I, hardly able to
repress a prophetic smile at what I knew would be the answer.
“ Well, Lewy, I don’t want to say nothing against nobody ;
but—I can’t abide her. She don’t know how to behave her-
self. ‘A foolish woman is clamorous; she is simple and
knoweth nothing ;’ Proverbs, ninth, thirteenth. I wouldn’t
have her to board in my house, not for silver and gold. The
188 SEACLIFF.

capers she’s capable of cutting up would disgrace a poor old
brown house like our’n, though I ’spose they don’t hurt a great
splendid white mansion, with four chimneys and a portico.
Just see the critter a-hoisting her coats. I tell you, Lewy, I
think she’s a regular New York fashionable hussy, there!”

Mrs. Treat, beginning with a resolution not to speak evil
of any one, had waxed stronger and stronger in disparage-
ment, until it did not seem that there was much left of Mrs.
‘Van Leer’s character. How often have the best of people
opened a conversation, or even a sentence, at the top of the
moral stairway, and finished it at the bottom! I laughed
silently at the spiritual incoherence of my worthy nurse, but
read her no stupid lecture on the sin of uncharitableness ;
simply proceeding to guess what was Mrs. Van Leer’s opinion
of herself, and then to decide what was my opinion of her.
In her own estimation, doubtless, she was a superlatively
attractive creature, witty, perfectly acquainted with the ways
of the world, mistress of herself, much sought after by men,
an overmatch for the best of them, and in no danger of
coming to ill. In my estimation she was lively without being
brilliant, and extremely imprudent without being demoralized.
She often said smart things, but it was chiefly because she
said a great many things, and did not check herself from
saying anything, however free or impertinent. She never
stopped to reflect; an idea scarcely entered her head before
it bounded out again; she could not keep one long enough
to combine it with another ; and thus her little rattle-box of a
skull was always pretty nearly empty. Neither good nor
bad, neither wise nor very foolish, she stuck in what might
be called an unhappy medium.

While I philosophized thus, I smoked my cigar and watched
her coquetries with the mussels. She got out of patience at
last, let go the folds of her raiment, threw away her shelly
booty in a heap, and walked slowly toward Seacliff, “with
many a longing, lingering look behind.” An hour afterwards
I followed in her little footsteps.
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 189

“ How are you?” said Bob, who met me on the veranda.
“ Got up here too late, old feller. She’s gone.”

“Who is gone?” I asked, with some disquietude, for guilt-
less as I was of any intentional flirtation with Mrs. Van Leer,
I had a vague fear that my last evening’s conversation with
that indiscreet female would bring me into trouble. Many a
youthful conscience, before now, has suffered a sort of re-
morse because of the stains on brother or sister consciences.

“Why, Genevieve,” replied Bob. “So your cake’s dough,
this morning. She’s gone to New York, with Mary and
Mrs. Westervelt,—about some shopping, of course. But you
needn’t feel much cut up; she'll be back again to-night. I
say, how infernal stupid I was last evening! There I sat
and sat, like a confounded fool, while you was talking to
Genevieve, and couldn’t think what you was after. If I had
thought, you know, that you wanted to make up to her, I
would’ have put off and left you alone. Why the old boy
couldn’t you wink at a feller?”

“Never mind,” said I, tempted first to laugh in his face,
and second to pull his ears until they should be as long as
those of other asses. “No great harm done, under the cir-
cumstances. But what will you do to-day?”

“ Oh, fishing. Going out in the yacht after dinner. Henry
was going to New York with the ladies; but when he found
what a grand day it was for sharking, he backed out, and sent
Hunter with ’em. Sis was going down, too; but she’s backed
out, as well.”

“Has she!” said I. My vanity suggested why Mrs. Van
Leer had concluded to remain at Seacliff; but I resolved not
to bite at her hook, no matter how temptingly she might bait
it with her French bootees.

“So we’ve got to take her along with us,” added Bob,
with the look of a much bored individual. I hate to have
women on hand when I’m busy fishing; they make me mad
with their little squealings and fol-de-rol. I’ve tried it two
or three times, and it don’t pay. I tell you, fishing is a thing
190 SEACLIFF.

that I want to give up my mind to. But you are a good-
natured feller, Fitz Hugh; you'll bait hooks for Sis, and keep
her out of the way, won’t you?”

. “Thank, you, I should be happy to do it; but the fact is
that I have some writing on hand, and I don’t think that I
can go.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, now!” groaned Bob. “Oh, I'd
counted on your going along.”

“Very sorry, indeed,” said I. “Good-morning. I must
go right at my. business.”

I had got a little distance away, when he roared after me,
“T say—I guess you wouldn’t have found your business quite
so pressing if she. had been going with us—haw haw haw!”

I knew that he meant Genevieve, but did not answer
further than by casting a grin of contempt at him over my
shoulder. I spent the rest of the forenoon in filling up the
points of a ballad about a gentleman, who rescued & lady,
who was being borne away by a black steed, who was sup-
posed to be Lucifer incarnate in horseffesh. About eleven
o’clock Mrs. Van Leer appeared on the beach, and resumed
her conchological investigations; and, after a while, I heard
her voice down stairs, discoursing in dulcet tones to my glumly
responsive landlady. She stayed some time, talked insinu-
ating gossip, offered to give instructions in various mysteries
of the toilet, and only retreated before the inhospitable remark
that it was “most dinner time, and the pot a bilin.”

At two o’clock I saw the yacht glide out of the creek, with
Somerville and the two brothers on deck, but no Mrs. Van
Leer. In half an. hour thereafter she was busy in her old
field of natural history; then sauntered onwards to a little
wooded point, called The Cedars; then strolled slowly and
languishingly back again. Seeing her approach the house, I
ran down stairs, hurried across the garden, leaped the rail-
fence, and took a walk in.the country ; for I was resolved not
to be left alone with her, chiefly, I believe, for fear that her
consuming little fire of a tongue might destroy whatever
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 191

chance I had of standing well with Miss Westervelt. On re-
turning, 1 met Ma Treat in the back doorway, smiling the
smile of the cruel.

“Ah!” she snuffed, emphatically, “I’m glad you was
gone. That eritter has been here, and had the face to ask
for you. I told her you wan't here, and I did long to say
I was precious glad on’t. She meant to ask for you this
morning ; but she dasn’t. I didn’t tease her to stay all the
aflemnoon, I reckon.” ‘

“ You don’t mean Mrs. Van Leer?” I inquired, innocently.
“ What could she want of me?”

“ Well, I shouldn’t like to know what she wanted. I didn’t
ask her what she wanted. She’d better be to home, darning
her husband-that’s-as-stupid-as-a-block’s stockings, instead of
running round to see young gentlemen at their lodgings.”

“Why, you don’t know anything really bad of Mrs. Van
Leer, I hope ?”

“Well, Lewy, Pa Treat has the same opinion of her that
I have; he says that he’s afraid she’s a real wild heifer.
You keep shy of her, Lewy, or she’ll make*trouble for you.
She’s a regular New York character; she don’t know how
to wear her clothes decent; that’s what she don’t.”

A significant motion at her neck and shoulders explained
Ma Treat’s meaning.

Was this inconsiderate woman in love with me? Not a
bit of it, most probably; she only meant to amuse herself.
But why had she not tried her coquetry on me before? It
is difficult to say ; we are a freakish set, men and women ;
we are subject to whims as unreasoning as dreams. Have
not I, in my bachelor life, known this or that young lady for
weeks, months, years, and never thought of flirting with her,
and, all of a sudden, the caprice has come upon me, and
I have flirted? Is an author bound to understand every-
thing that everybody does, and present sufficient reasons there-
for? Why, people are not always able to give an account of
their own actions. For poesy’s sake, let the world occa-
192 SEACLIFF.

sionally accept a circumstance that is mysterious, that is
unpremeditated, that is incalculable. For my own part, 1
do not pretend to see through the half of what happens.
Well, was Mrs. Van Leer to blame for her nonsense? Of
course; but so was her husband partly to blame for it; he:
had no business to spend nearly all his time in fishing,
hunting, playing euchre and drinking mint-juleps. He un-
questionably admired and loved his wife; but he was too
“hossy ” a character to endure a drawing-room long, even
for the sake of her company; and so he left her more than
was prudent to seek her pleasure in society that was often
detrimental to the purity of her manners, if not of her soul.

About the middle of the afternoon, the long-drawn shriek
of the New York express train came to me like music. I
ran to a back window, which commanded the Rockford road,.
and leaned out of it for twenty minutes or more, until I saw
the Westervelt carriage, brimming over with bonnets and.
feminine drapery, spin through the dusty hollow, and disappear
behind the maples which flanked the bluff. Of course, I was
in the Seacliff veranda at a ridiculously early hour of the
evening. Mrs. Van Leer received me with a curt nod and a
curious little grimace, which seemed to say, “You have be-
haved shamefully, and thrown away an opportunity that will.
not be offered you again.” Almost any young man feels
cheap when he has laid himself open to a charge of lacking
in spirit and gallantry ; and, accordingly, I tried to gloss over
my conduct with an apology, which, like many apologies, was
only founded on fact.

Ҥo, you did not go in the yacht, Mrs. Van Leer? Iam
really glad of it, for a very selfish reason. It relieves the
regret which I felt at not having gone in it, myse i”

“J wish I had gone,” she replied, energetically. “TI have
been mis—erably lonesome all this afternoon. I was actually
reduced to call at your lodgings, and ask for you, in hopes
that you would devote a few mo—ments of your useless ex-
istence to my amusement.”
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 1938

“ Oh—ah—yes,” said I. “Mrs. Treat told me that you
inquired about me; but then, you know,—why, of course, I
felt obliged to consider it a mere inquiry of friendship.”

“Not in the least; no benev—olent feeling at all, sir; not
a bit anxious about either your health or happiness. I wanted
you simply for my own recreation, till the family got back.
So, you were out on a walk?”

“Yes; the adverse gods had inveigled me away just a few
moments before your call. I hope you found Mrs. Treat
pleasant company.”

“The company of Mrs. Treat is no treat at all. She is a
pure unadul—terated tartar! a perfect dose! I wouldn’t
live under her roof for any—thing, and I wonder you dare
do it. I don’t believe ake would stick at mur—der, if she
took a spite at a person.” :

I could hardly help laughing outright, as I compared the
opinions which these two ladies had formed of each other on
the briefest and most imperfect opportunities for mutual ob-
servation. Women eternally judge of character by instinct;
and their instinct is a wonderfully sure shot, I admit, as long
as it is unbiassed by feeling; but no archers can be worse
than they when their hearts are interested whether by affec-
tion or anger. We men judge coldly, phlegmatically, re-
peatedly, and, after a long while, correctly.

Mrs. Wesiervelt and the two young ladies presently joined
us. I dreaded to meet the eye of the elder sister, for fear
that Mrs. Van Leer had described to her our interview of
the previous evening, and so-impressed upon her the idea
that I was a wild youth, of extremely naughty manners, and
dissolute conversation. No such charge had been preferred
against me; or, if preferred, it had been charitably disbe-
lieved. Those blue eyes were kindly, and that dimpled
smile spoke welcome. I placed a cane settee for her in such
a way that the trembling leaves and drooping trumpets of
the honeysuckle might encircle her head, and the last florid

light of the west might tint her cheek with a more than in-
9
194 SEACLIFF.”

carnate beauty. Mrs. Van Leer posted herself beside Mary,
and watched us both with a quizzing sauciness which was
undisguised, rampant. The rest of us fell into the iron
chairs of imitation rustic work. Genevieve looked tired,
complained of a headache, said little, and would have been
downright waspish, I imagine, but for my presence. Don’t
we men control our passions before the ladies, and even play
the amiable, when we are cross enough to kick a little hey
down stairs ?

The Van Leer sloop was close in shore, followed at a short
distance by a yacht schooner. The dying breeze of sundown
favored the smaller vessel, which gradually drew ahead, and
ran into the creek, while its competitor, givirig up the race,
veered away in the direction of Rockford. When the Van
Leers and Somerville appeared, they immediately ordered
out the double carriage, and invited Mr. Hunter and myself
to join them in a drive to Rockford.

“What are you going to Rock—ford for? Now what 7s
the use?” demanded Mrs. Van Leer.

“Oh, just a supper; chicken salad and champagne; that’s
all,” said her husband, as if it were very little. “That was -
Buster’s yacht that we come in with. We beat him, and he
treats. Perhaps we shan’t be home till late, my dear; not
till about ten.”

“That means twelve, or two, I suppose,” remarked the
lady, snappishly. “Well, what are we women to do? Sup-
pose rob—bers attack us, now ?”

“Why, it appears that Mr. Fitz Hugh chooses to remain,”
interposed Somerville. “I wish I had the grace to be half
as gallant a man. If the Forty Thieves chalk your door,
Mr. Fitz Hugh will immediately chalk all the doors along
the sea-coast. That will keep them busy otherwheres until at
least morning.”

“ And if the robbers come, why just keep a stiff upper
lip, my dear,” said the husband. “Give ’em a piece of your
mind, and hit ’em across the face with your fan.”
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 195

“Indeed, I shan’t resist,” replied the lady, half jesting,
half sulky; for she was a most sociable creature, and dis--
liked to see people go out of her presence. “I shall do my
best to be per—fectly fas—cinating, I give. you my word
that, if the robber chief is hand—some, I’ll elope with him.”

At this sally Henry roared with delight, as he always: did
when his wife said anything particularly reckless or saucy.
In a minute more the wheels of the carriage grated over the
gravel of the road, rattled down the hill, and went droning
away, faintly, fainter still, in the evening distance.

Meantime the ladies had begun to talk of dress. Mrs.
Van Leer put the Westervelts through a catechism concern-
ing the day’s shopping: what they had seen and where, what
they had bought and what refused to buy, what was worn and
who wore it: a conversation of divers stuffs and many colors,
silks, berages, muslins, pink, rose, blue, green, and crimson.

“Well! I declare that Mr. Fitz Hugh is the most im—pu-
dent of men,” suddenly observed Mrs. Van Leer. “ There
he is, laughing at us for talking about the bare necessaries
of life. Only last evening he was abusing the strong-minded
women to me. Now he is sneering at us for weak-minded
women. There is no pleasing these men; and J, for one,
can’t bear them.”

“T hope Mr. Fitz Hugh is charitable,” said Miss Wester-
velt. “I hope he will consider that we have to make our
own dresses, or at least to plan them.”

“ Certainly ; it is an all-sufficient explanation,” I admitted.
“If manifest destiny, or whatsoever other great law of na-
ture had obliged me to fashion my own raiment, I don’t doubt
that I should have given much meditation to coat-collars,
cuffs, and gaiters. My soul would not have been above but-
tons. I am duly grateful to the star of man’s fortune, that it
has furnished the world with tailors.”

“Why, what a charm—ing theory!” said Mrs. Van Leer.
“ ‘ Act—ually, I never understood before why women care so
much for dress, and men so little. How clever you are, Mr.
196 SEACLIFF.

I—dler, and how well you have improved your lazy time!
Come, you shan’t be left there moping alone any longer ; you
shall walk in the garden with me.—Now, see how easily I
am distracted from the lesser moralities,’” she continued, in a
whispér, as she rose and took my arm. “It is my du—ty to
sit still and think of my absent hus—band; but it is my
pleas—ure to prome—nade with you.”

She was beginning to court me again, and I grew desper-
ate. “ But, I thought that you lived solely to love, as
and obey,” said I.

“Never! I have nothing to do with those obsolete aeons.
I feel quite hurt that you should suppose it. Come along;
How slow you walk!”

She had got me to the other end of the veranda, and was
about to spirit me away into the shadows and silences of the
garden, when I heard the front gate open, and saw two
figures enter it.

“ Ah! here is amusement, Mrs. Van Leer ; here is a grat-
ification for you,” said I. “Your friend, Mrs. Treat, and her
grandson have come to call on the quality, as she ae you.
Let us get our seats again before the audience opens.”

She was but half pleased at the idea, but I hurried hse
back to the settee.

With a brief but solemn courtesy, at the same time duck-
ing Johnny’s head with her hand, Ma Treat entered: the
veranda. “ Good-evening, Mrs. Westervelt; and, pood-
evening, young ladies; and good-evening to you, Mr. Fitz
Hugh,” said the nice old person, with something of a bashful
flutter in her voice, yet retaining the presence of mind to
scorn and crush Mrs. Van Leer with the very curtest of
speechless recognitions. I handed her a chair, for which she
thanked me as formally as if we were perfect strangers. She
was evidently a trifle more embarrassed than she meant to be
in the presence of the quality, and needed that counsel with
regard to a stiff upper lip which Mr. Henry Van Leer was
accustomed to dispense among his acquaintance. Miss Wes-
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. iff

tervelt put her a little more at ease by calling up Johnny, and
treating him to the hospitality of sugar-plums.

“ Much obleeged to ye, Miss Mary, though I seldom allow
him to eat ’em, because they are so bad for the stomach,”
said Ma Treat. “Johnny, tell her much obleeged, and ‘make
a bow.”

Johnny gave vent to an inarticulate mutter of grati-
tude, and made a bow from the nape of his neck upward.
He then craftily retreated behind Miss Westervelt to craunch
his gum-drops, knowing full well that if he came within reach
of his grandmother, they would be seized upon by her, and
laid up until some future time, perhaps as distant as the mil-
lennium, when he should be a good boy.

“ Really it is so hard to teach these young ones manners,”
observed Ma Treat. “If manners were only vouchsafed
them as freely as appetites, what a mercy it would be! But
that ain’t what I come here to say, Mrs. Westervelt. I sup-
pose you're kind of almost surprised to see me here, now.”

It was known that Ma Treat felt a little sore at not being
urged and pushed daily to make herself intimate at the man-
sion; and therefore Mrs. Westervelt threw an uncommon
stress of friendship and hospitality into the tone of her reply.

“Surprised! Dear me! no, Mrs. Treat. It seems quite
natural to see you here. I am delighted that you have made
us a call, now really.”

“Well, I’m much obleeged to you, to be sure. But I didn’t
exactly come to make you a call, nuther. Perhaps you’ve
lost something valuable lately, some of you ladies.”

“Lost? Oh! now Mrs. Treat has found my emerald,”
exclaimed Genevieve. “ Haven’t you, Mrs. Treat? A ring
with a bright green stone in it, wasn’t it? Oh, I’m so de-
lighted! Where was it? Is it broken?”

With a look of vast pleasure and consequence, Ma Treat
drew out of her pocket a small white handkerchief, rather
coarse but clean, untied a corner of it in silence, and held up
between her thumb and forefinger a handsome emerald ring.

°
fo8 SEACLIFF.

- “That's it, that’s it,” said Genevieve, springing forward to
receive it. “Oh, I'm ever so much obliged to you. Where
did you find it?”

“ ‘Why, you see, Miss Genevieve, it was found this even-
ing. Johnny here run down to the crick to see the sloop
come in; and when the gentlemen got ashore, he followed
’em a’most up to the house; and he picked up the ring, he
says, right in the path, as he was going back. But as he
didn’t see anybody drop it, he didn’t know whose it was, and
so he run right to his granma with it, for he’s a good little
boy—.” Here she checked herself, and added in a glum
voice, meant to bring down Johnny’s spiritual pride,—“Some-
tzmes he’s a good boy; not always.”

“Oh, Johnny ! why, come here, Johnny,” said Mrs. Wes-
tervelt, dulcetly. “I must make you a present, Johnny.”

She drew a port-monnaie from her pocket ; but Mrs. Treat
waved Johnny back with proud resolution.

“No, I thank you, mum,” she said. “I'd ruther not,
mum. He’s our little boy, and we’ve taught him not to take
coppers from nobody.”

Looking in her face with a laugh of friendly defiance, Mary
Westervelt seized the port-monnaie, picked out a quarter-
eagle and handed it to the craunching juvenile behind her,
who took it with the same nod and grunt with which he
would have accepted a gum-drop. “There, Johnny, take
that ; and tell your grandpa to give-it to Santa Claus for you;
and when Christmas comes, hang up both your stockings and
see what the old fellow will bring you. Hold on to it tight,
Johnny.”

“ Oh, Miss Mary! well, you do come round a person so!”
said Ma Treat, yielding in the most docile manner imagina-
ble, and supposing, as I afterward learned, that the piece was
sixpence or a shilling. “Well, I reckon he must have it.
Johnny, say much obleeged and make a bow; and you may
kiss Miss Mary’s hand, too, I guess.”

Johnny kissed the little white hand with a resounding
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 199

smack that made the ladies laugh, and filled me with
envy.

“ Well, mamma, I suppose you won’t give me any more
jewelry, since I lose it so easily,” remarked Genevieve laugh-

ingly. “Mamma gave it to me five days ago, and I lost it
yesterday,” she explained tome. “TI don’t see how it could
have got down by the creek, though; I haven’t been there
since we had our last sail. Mamma, I am perfectly, sure that
T left it in your room ; yes, perfectly sure. You must have
put it on, and lost it yourself.”

“No, Genevieve! I am positive not,” replied Mrs. Wester-
velt earnestly. She had a troubled air, and I did not wonder
at it, for she must have suspected, as I did, that the ring had
been in the possession of Somerville. How was it possible
that this mystery, this hateful intrigue, black and blind and
incredible as it was, could writhe its folds, day after day,
through her household, and she not be aware of it ?

At this moment Willie Westervelt. danced into the veran-
da, closely pursued by his nurse, who was bent on putting
him to bed.

“Why, Willie!” exclaimed Mary; “up yet! Why, Wil-
lie, go to bed ; run off quick ; go to Bridget.”

Mary governed Willie very nicely ; his mother never tried
to govern him at all; Genevieve sometimes snubbed him,
sometimes petted and spoiled him.

“No, no! don’t want to go ;—don’t want to go,” whim-
pered the little fellow. “ Wanto see Gramma Treat; wanto

‘see Gramma Treat and Johnny.”
“Yes, yes, he sall see his Gramma Treat,” said my land-
_ lady, drawing him up to her knees. “ He sall set up a little
minute and see his Gramma Treat, the dear little creetur !
He calls me Gramma, you know, Miss Mary, because Johnny
does. Johnny being the oldest boy is a kind of an ensample
tohim. Ah, Johnny! Johnny! I wish you felt your respon-
sibilities. You don’t know how much you’ve got to answer for.”

The hardened young sinner regarded his grandmother with
200 SEACLIFF.

blockish,—shall I say fiendish ?—indifference to his responsi-
bilities, and continued to suck a gum-drop. She shook her
head at him with an air which seemed to say that his impen-
itence alone was enough to postpone the restoration of the
Jews to Canaan. Willie meanwhile climbed into her Jap as a
place of refuge from Bridget, and peered into her serious,
good-natured old face, with that tranquil, shrewd, humorous
smile of his, which gave his small mouth such an individu-
ality. He seemed to be gauging her character, and speculat-
ing how far he could venture upon her credulity.

“ Gramma,” said he, “I'll tell you a tory.”

“ Willie! Willie! be careful!” interrupted sister Mary. _

“Yes, yes; he sall tell his ’tory,” cried Ma Treat; “the
dear little man sall tell his ’tory; and his gramma and
Johnny sall hear it. Johnny come to me and hear Willie
tell his ’tory.”

Thus provided with an appreciative audience, the young
improvisatore struck out boldly. “Once there was two
fools—” ,

“Well that’s like enough, anyhow,” observed Ma Treat
cheerfully. “‘ Fools make a mock at sin:’ Proverbs, four-
teenth, ninth; and there’s crowds of such, I’m afraid. Go
on, little man.”

“Once there was two fools,” resumed Willie. “ One was
a man and the other was a woman, and they got married.”

“ Dear me, what awful fools!” laughed Mrs. Van Leer.

“They couldn’t help getting married,” continued Willie,
solemnly ; “it was ordained they should get married.”

“ Matches made in heaven,” said Mrs. Van Leer, exces-
sively amused.

“ And they had some children, and all the children were
fools,” the infant went on.

“He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow :” Prov-
erbs, seventeenth, twenty-first,” quoted Ma Treat.

«And finally a naughty gentleman ran away with the
woman fool, and then the man fool killed himself, and then
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 201

the children used to eat their victuals on the floor, and finally
they hadn’t any more victuals—and so—and so they all
*tarved to death.”

“ Dear me! dear me!” exclaimed the good woman, quite
shocked. “That’s an awful story, to be sure. Verily, fools
‘die for want of wisdom: Proverbs, tenth, twenty-first. But
where in the world did that happen, Miss Mary?”

“Ah, Willie!” said Mary, “go to bed, now. I told you
not to tell any more stories. ‘You tell such naughty stories,
Willie!”

“ But how on earth did the child get hold of that ridiculous
‘idea of foreordination ?” broke in Mrs. Van Leer. “Who
ever thought of a baby five years old talking about things
being foreordained? I never heard anything so ridic—
ulous ?”

“ Ttold him that, if you please, mum,” returned Ma Treat,
with severity. “I instructed him in that blessed doctrine, mum ;
and a great comfort I believe it will be to him, mum. Ridic-
ulous or what not, it’s in the Bible, mum, and you can’t get ‘it
out. For there were certain men who were before of old
ordained to this condemnation: Jude, fourth. And as many
as were ordained to eternal life, believed: Acts, thirteenth,
forty-eighth. I told him whatever is to be, Providence or-
dains that it shall be ; and I say Amen! mum; and I’m very
glad the little creetur agrees to it, if his elders don’t.”

Having withered Mrs. Van Leer, Ma Treat addressed the
rest of us with conspicuous mildness. “ But it’s dreadful cu-
r’ous to remark the blindness of the nateral man to spiritual
truths. I saw an instance of that awful blindness in this
dear little creetur himself. One day he was down to our

‘house when there was a funeral went by. And so I under-
took to tell him what death was, and how there was a dead
man in the coffin, and how they were going to put him in the
ground and bury him. But, says I, they can’t bury the
whole of him; they’ve only got the body inside of the coffin,

says I; all the rest of him has gone to heaven. (For it was
9*
202 SEACLIFF.

our good Deacon Church-that-lived-at-Swampeut’s funeral ;
and I knew that he’d got to the right place at last; though
he was cur’ously out of place in the deaconship, because he
wasn’t a very smart man.) Well, about a month after that,
it happened that Willie was down to our house when another
coffin went by; and I overheard him explaining the whole
thing to Johnny here. Johnny, says he, they’ve got a dead
man in that coffin; they’re going to bury him up in the
ground; but, Jolinny, says he, they ha’n’t got the whole of.
him ; they’ve only got the body inside of the coffin; the head
and legs have gone to heaven.”

We burst into a shout of laughter. Ma Treat looked as-
tonished that we could find anything humorous in what was to
her an instance of the blindness of fallen man and the deceiv-
ing malice of the devil. Her only remark, however, was that
it was high time the little creetur should learn to say his
catechism. Curiosity presently revived, and she added:
“ But, Miss Mary, what was that, now,—that story about the
fools? Where on earth did such an awful thing happen?”

“Tnside of Willie’s head,” responded Mrs. Van Leer, de-
lighted to discomfit her late reprover. ‘“ Nowhere else, you
may be sure, Mrs. Treat. He is forev—er fooling people
with his little fictions.” :

Ma Treat’s countenance swelled with astonishment and
shrunk with mortification, settling down at last into an
expression of anger, half religious, half secular, like the
letter-press of the New York Observer. She saw the jeering
triumph of Mrs. Van Leer, and she remembered, perhaps,
that the child had told her many other wonderful stories, and
that she had always granted them unlimited credence. Wil-
lie’s cunning smile disappeared before her awful frown, as a
playful kitten whisks out of sight at the approach of a bull-
dog.

© What! and does this little boy tell lies?” she exclaimed,
in her theological tone. “Does he make up naughty, wicked
lies, and tell them to his mother and sisters and gramma ?
A FLIRTATION AND A FINGER-RING. 203

Oh, naughty little Willie! What if the father of lies should
come after him! What if the great roaring lion, the devil,
should come after him! And all liars shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: Revela-
tions, twenty-first, eighth.”

Willie struggled down from her lap in great haste, and
sought refuge from the lion in Bridget’s apron.

. “The devil! the great wicked devil!” repeated Ma
Treat, as grimly as if she were that roaring personage. “He
owns all the naughty boys that tell lies, and he will come
after them; for he walketh about seeking whom he may de-
vour: First Peter, fifth, eighth.”

Willie burst into a whimper, and rushed toward his room,
followed by Bridget. Mary ran after him, and we heard her
trying to comfort his frightened little heart with the promise
that she would stay by his bed till he was asleep. At the
sweet sounds of that pitying voice, Mrs. Treat melted and
began to apologize.

“Why, I’m sorry I made the poor creetur cry so,” said
she. “I guess I was a leetle too hard on him, not knowing
his tender feelings; for Johnny here ain’t a bit tender. I
can’t scare him with the devil. Oh, I wish to goodness I
could! The fact is, I was piously educated in the good old
way, Mrs. Westervelt; and I RUpBeRe Tm a leetle stiff in my
ideas,—a mite too severe perhaps.”

“Not at all,—not at all, Mrs. Treat,” said Mrs. Westervelt
amicably. “Very proper, I am sure. Willie certainly is very
singular,—a most extraordinary child,—and I have no doubt
he ought to break off that habit.”

“ Well, I must be going,” replied Mrs. Treat. “Come,
Johnny ; tell the Jadies good night. And good night for my-
self too, ladies. Kiss the poor little creetur for me, Miss
Genevieve, and ask him to forgive his old gramma for talking
so harsh to him.”
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XV.

A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

ye half an hour Mary returned to the veranda, saying

that Willie’s troubles were over.
“Well, now I shall put.an end to mine,” observed
Genevieve. “I am going to bed.”

“Don’t Jenny. Wait till the rest of us go; wait till our
men come home; won’t you, please?” pleaded Mary.

“ No, I won’t please,” returned Genevieve, always particu-
larly unamiable after any unusual fatigue or excitement.
“The railroad has given me a splitting headache, and I
won’t make it worse to oblige anybody. There! do take
your hands off me,—I’m so hot!”

Without replying, Mary put out her lips for a kiss, and
Genevieve gave her one of the sulkiest. This little aside
passed in the front hall, unmeant, perhaps, for my eyes and
ears, but not quite occult, nevertheless, inasmuch as I had just-
lounged into the garden and stood in front of the doorway.
If Genevieve must snap at somebody, why should she select
her unoffending sister to bear the bite? For two good rea-
sons: in the first place Mary was the person who happened
to be nearest her at the moment; in the second place, her
nature was temptingly gentle and uncombative; for your
feminine bully almost always selects a quaker antagonist.
‘By way of a general observation, and without special refer-
ence to Genevieve, I remark that nearly all our quarrels are
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 205

with our friends, of course, inasmuch as our enemies (if we
are so distinguished as to boast any) usually pass by on the
other side, while indifferent persons have too few subjects in
common with us to render a tiff often possible. If a man at
the close of his life could count up all the hard words that
he has uttered, he would find, I suspect, that the majority of
them have been vented on his intimates and well-wishers.
Not that humanity is a bad thing, however: it is juxtaposition
which is to blame: without contact, no friction.

Genevieve marched off, and the rest of us remained as we
were. At ten o’clock, as the moon went down, the south
wind rose rapidly, driving before it an army of clouds swift
and sombre; and in an hour more, although not cold nor
exactly stormy, it was as boisterous as a summer night could
be without rain or thunder. I rose once to leave, but Mrs.
Van Leer had become timorous, and protested that I should
not stir until the gentlemen returned, declaring, that she
would follow me home rather than stay with no one but
women. Accordingly, I sat down again, cunningly taking
care to establish myself on the same settee with Mary. Pres-
ently the idea that some prowlers might be looking at her
from behind the garden thickets, frightened Mrs. Van Leer
from the veranda; and dragging Mrs. Westervelt after her,
she retreated- into the parlor, where she could hardly be dis-
suaded from closing the doors and bolting the heavy wooden
shutters. Nothing could induce her to sit by a window ; she
was afraid that a murderous hand would be slipped in and
laid on her shoulder; and so she crept into a corner, beyond
the longest arm’s length of the awful out-doors. It was by
way of keeping up her spirits, I suppose, that she talked of
all the murders that she had ever heard of, dwelling especi-
ally on such as had been perpetrated in the country. Some
of her stories were ghastly enough to make a timid person’s
skeleton walk straight out of his flesh with fright. She soon
infected Mrs. Westervelt with her childish terror; and there
they both sat, as white as if they had been comfortably mur-
dered for an hour or two.
206 SEACLIFF.

All this tended to leave me in a pleasant situation. I was
by the side of my houri, alone, and could talk to her. without
interruption. I was visible from the parlor, but dimly ;
audible, but imperfectly, for I dared to speak low.. Had I
fallen on my knees to Miss Westervelt, or committed any
other similar absurdity, I doubt whether either of the two
married Jadies would have had the presence of mind to be
surprised at it. Once I heard Mrs. Van Leer whisper that
if she only had her Bible, she would like to read a chapter,
and oh, if that pious Mrs. Treat would come back and sit
with them! At most times I should have smiled to hear the
devil wishing to turn monk, but then I only noted the remark
with that quick, stealthy mental touch which so often lays
up an idea in the memory when consciousness is not aware
of it.

“So you are not afraid?” said J, addressing Miss Wes-
tervelt.

“No. I might be, however, if you were not here. Cousin
Jule is absolutely contagious ; and the house is well situated
for a romance, bloody or otherwise. Don’t you think so?
It is so lonely, that strange things might happen in it without
being seen or heard. by the rest of the world. Then it is
by the side of the sea, so that pirates could land, at it and
mysterious boats put out from it laden with dead or living
victims. Then what grand nights we have for tragedies!
Such nights as this, for instance, with the wind and the sea
conspiring to drown every cry for help! roaring, foaming
nights, when the waves rush on the rocks like murderers!
There is one thing more. The house is conspicuous, so that.
the country people could point it out from a distance, and,
strangers could get a view of it without taking the trouble to
leave the cars. Don’t you think we have advantages? ”

“ Great! I wonder that nobody has had the taste to im-
prove them.”

“Ah well! I have sometimes had a feeling that something
would happen here,” she continued, speaking low, and with a
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 207

faint tremble in her voice. “It is an instinct with me ; very,
very absurd, of course ; but it sometimes scares me.”

“TY have had the same feeling,” replied I; “yes, and more
than that, an idea that something fearful 7s going on here,
from day to day; something which you do not see, and which
I do not see, although I am conscious of its presence.”

“T beg of you!” she said, imploringly. “You startle me.
You talk and look too much in earnest.”

She seemed so troubled, that I relented and tried to reas-
sure her by smiling and by a tone of jest. “Don’t look so
grave, Miss Westervelt. The mystery, if there be one, may
be ludicrous instead of serious. ‘Luckily for the world, more
farces happen in it than tragedies. Thackeray insists that
every house has its closet with a skeleton in it. I think,
with due deference to so great a philosopher, that he would
have come nearer the truth if he had asserted that one house
in ten has its skeleton, while the other nine have each a
punchinello. Unfortunately, the Jaugh of the punchinello
is transitory, while the grin of the skeleton is terribly en-
during.”

“ Who is our punchinello?” she asked. “You don’t mean
Robert? Poor fellow! I won’t laugh; he is too good-hearted
to be ridiculed; he truly is. I hope you give him credit for
a good heart.”

“T do, I do, most certainly. I give him credit for the
best of intentions.”

I was, however, very uncharitably delighted to find that
Miss Westervelt claimed nothing more for Robert than that
* good heart” which is so well spoken of in this world and
so much despised. By the way, does any one wonder that
we both thought of Robert as the family punchinello, and
not of Hunter, who was our real buffoon? Let it be ob-
served that Hunter was no suitor of Miss Westervelt’s and
no rival of mine, so that he exacted little of our attention
compared with Robert, who haunted both of us like a clumsy
nightmare, at once laughable and terrible.
208 SEACLIFF. .

“What a pity that we can’t all be clever!” was her next
remark. —

“ What a pity that the valleys can’t all be as high as the
mountains!” returned I. :

'“T know it. If we were all eminent, there would be no
eminence. Still, one can’t help regretting that Robert’s good
heart could not be mated with an equally good head.”

“Excuse me, I can help it very easily ; in fact, I don’t
care at all to have him clever,” I replied boldly.

“ Why not?” she asked surprised, and then added rapidly,
without giving me time to answer the question, “ Oh, I was
going to say—let me see—that Robert is, at least, intelligent
enough to perceive his own want of capacity and to lament it.”

“Yes, and I respect him for it. A humble genius is cer-
tainly one of the noblest moral and intellectual spectacles
possible. But a humble numskull is also a beautiful sight to
behold. Yes, a simple head, meekly conscious of its simplic-
ity, mourning over the fact daily, and, as it were, asking
pardon for it of its fellows, is in my eyes little less than
venerable.”

“What an ingenious compliment! Iam afraid that you
are ironical; but you ought to be sincere; Robert deserves
as much as that. However, it still seems to me a pity that
any good people should be simple, or that any bad people
should possess great talents.”

I thought at once of Somerville, and consequently of the
mystery. I must be cautious,—I must not commit myself,
I reflected,—until that cloud is cleared away, and I know
whether I can venture my happiness in this family without
risk of grievous shipwreck.

“It does seem a moral blunder of providence,” I said aloud;
“at least it seems such to our imperfect human vision. By
the way, I am anxious to ask you one question. Did you
ever wonder that manly beauty, social tact, and brilliant
faculties had been conferred upon—well, I may as well say
it boldly—upon Mr. Somerville ?”
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 209

“Mr. Somerville ?” she said with a disturbed air. “Mr.
Somerville?” she repeated, as if to gain time to collect her
thoughts. ‘ But you don’t mean to hint, I hope, that he puts
his advantages to a bad use.”

“T have certainly suspected him of it. Frankly, I have
no confidence in him.”

“Are you not afraid that you are uncharitable?” she mur-
mured after a little silence. “I amsurprised. I have never
heard you talk in this way before.”

“Don’t believe that I talk thus often or of every one,”
I exclaimed, for I shrank at the thought of not appearing
kindly and noble to her. “Let me explain to you what
I feel and mean. Have you never had an instinctive aver-
sion to this or that person,—a dread of him even,—without
knowing what evil thing to allege against him? You have?
Yes, I know it; all women have had that feeling ; most men
also. Now, have you not afterwards felt a curiosity to learn
whether your antipathy was well founded, and whether others
shared it? I think you will allow that such an impulse is
natural and excusable. ‘Will you not?”

“ Yes,——yes.—I understand you,” she replied, slowly
and thoughtfully ; “I do most certainly excuse all that you
said. I will not repeat it, either ; for I am sure that you do
not wish me to. As to my own opinion of Mr. Somerville,—
I cannot tell what to answer. I don’t quite comprehend him ;
he is a strange man to me. I ought not to say that I dislike
him ; for, although I have been acquainted with him several
years, I still know very little of him; and besides, he is a
guest of ours and an old friend of mamma’s. He was her
lawyer once, and the manager of her property. But that
was before she married papa.”

“T imagine that he pays very little attention to his pro-
fession.”

“T suspect so,” she replied, absent-mindedly. “I wish he
had more to do; then he would not come here so much.”
She recollected herself, and added, “ But I do not know any-
thing against him.”

 

 
210 SEACLIFF.

“T told you,” resumed I, “that I had an instinctive con-
sciousness of some hidden drama which is enacting in this
‘house, or at least. in this neighborhood. I refer that con-
sciousness chiefly to the presence of Mr. Somerville. I feel
that he brought the spell of mystery with him, and that if he
should go away forever it would be: broken. If there is an
evil genius in human shape among us, it is he.” :

“Mr. Fitz Hugh! you alarm me. Don’t ‘talk to me so,
if you please. I do doubt him; I am afraid of him; and
yet,—and yet, what has he done? Don’t let us speak of it
any more. I am getting as timid as Mrs. Van Leer.”

I leaned forward to obtain a view of the two ladies in the
parlor. Mrs. Westervelt was growing somniferous in spite
of her alarms, and would doubtless have been asleep already
but for the pettish remonstrances and shakings of her com-
panion, who loved company in misery even more than at
other times. Mrs. Van Leer sat bolt upright and broad
awake, her black eyes wide open and glancing perpetually
from window to window with a ludicrous watchfulness.

“Why don’t you come in and close up the house?” she
asked impatiently at sight of my face. “ You will catch your
deaths of cold, out there.”

“No danger,” I replied. “I will get a shawl, however,
for Miss Westervelt.”

Stepping into the parlor and picking up a light crape affair,
which lay on an ottoman just as the tired Genevieve had
thrown it down, I returned with it to my lovely fellow-
watcher. She let me draw it over her shoulders and fold the
ends loosely across her neck. Once or twice, perhaps inten-
tionally, perhaps not, I touched those shoulders in arranging
the fragile drapery, and though the immediate contact was
but with a boddice,—a fragment of silk,—yet my brain spun
in its secret chamber as madly as a whirling dervish. All
recollection of the mystery was dissipated when I resumed
my seat beside her. Somerville, Genevieve, Robert, Mrs.
Van Leer, the plaid dress, the words spoken on the night of
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 211

the storm, the private advertisement, everybody, everything,
dislodged from my thought in that moment, blew away and
was forgotten like last year’s thistle-downs. Yet I sat silent
and unable to speak ; it seemed as if my very mind had lost
its voice. :

“They stay a long time at Rockford. It must be near
midnight,” said Miss Westervelt.

“TI bear them no ill-will for it,’ I replied. “They are

“doing me the greatest of favors.”

It was Miss Westervelt again who had to break a terrific

silence. “ But you ought to pity Cousin Jule. There she is,
‘frightening herself nearly to death.”

“ Cousin Jule is a ninny,” said I. “She hasn’t half the
cause for alarm that I have.”

I wanted to be asked what cause for alarm I had; and
Miss Westervelt knew that I wished it, or she would have
been no woman; but she either did not choose or did not
dare to gratify me. Her reserve piqued me, and disheart-
ened me also, for I took it as a reproof to my forwardness.
Back ran my wits, like Mistrust and Timorous at sight of the
lions, rolling down the hill Difficulty clear into the slough of
Despond. Some ignoramus of women and manners has ob-
served that faint heart never won fair lady. I should like to
know what truly earnest and noble heart ever won its lady
without at least a dozen faint turns before it achieved victory.
Recommencing the dialogue in a spirit of contemptible pol-
troonery, and trying to assume an air of mere jesting, I ob-

‘served that Mrs. Treat’s remarks concerning a certain evil
perambulator had so shaken my nerves, that I quite dreaded
to go home alone.

“So much the better,” she said. “Most people are not
sufficiently: afraid of the personage you speak of. But I
know that what you say is affectation, or rather jesting. You
are not timid, and I have reason to be grateful for it. Every
time that I am reminded of that narrow escape of mine, I feel
that I have not thanked ‘you sufficiently for risking your life
212 SEACLIFF.

to save me. Just think of it! If I had been thrown, it’
might have killed me, or at least rendered me deformed for

life. Oh, it would be dreadful, certainly, to become a cripple

at a blow, or to be stricken straight into idiocy. I think that

I would rather have my eyes closed forever than to see noth-

ing aright with them,—to have them always. cheated and

mocked by delirium. How horrible it would be to go right |
out of reason into madness! Not to know my friends, not

to know my father, my sister !”

I felt that a crisis had come in my life, and that I was
about to utter my own destiny. I do not know what I should
have said, for there were no words in my brain, but only a
confused whirl and hum of emotions, such as we all have felt
at moments, filling the eyes with the light of their passage
and striving to utter themselves without speech. I dare be-
lieve that all the fates and fairies were listening on tiptoe for
my next syllable, dying to know what it would be and what
-would be the answer to it. That mysterious syllable, loaded
with results of gladness or disappointment, I had no chance
to enunciate, for just in that moment of moments, Mrs. Van
Leer sprang from her sofa and ran out to us, exclaiming,
“Oh, Mr. Fitz Hugh! Oh! what was that?”

“ What was what?” I returned, with an impatience
which was natural if not justifiable. i

“Qh! that noise. I’m sure I heard something up stairs.
There! there it goes again! Oh! there certainly are rob-
bers up stairs. Do go up and see what it is. No, don’t go;
stay here with us.”

Something had in fact fallen in the room above; some
light article of furniture, I thought, like a chair or lamp-
stand. At that instant quick footfalls and a whisper of.
drapery fled down the stairway, and Genevieve rushed into
the parlor, her Cenci-like face so pale and frightened that
Ihardly. noticed the carelessness with which her dressing-
gown folded her. Indeed, I had very little chance at first to
observe anything, for the moment that she appeared I had
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 913

both arms full of Mrs. Van Leer, who gave but one shriek
and made a faint of it. Carrying the absurd creature into
the payjgr, I laid her on a sofa, where she remained until her
wits got the upper hands again.

“What ts the matter, Jenny?” demanded Mrs. and Miss
Westervelt together.

MeL I do don’t know,” stammered poor Genevieve,
whose lower jaw was not under control. “Something waked
me up, and then I heard the dresses fall in our closet, and
I ran down.”

“ Stay here,” said I, checking Mrs. Westervelt and Mary,
who were about to rush up stairs, I suppose after Willie.
“ Give me a light, and I will see who is there.”

“Oh, Mr. Fitz Hugh, be careful! don’t be gone long!”
exclaimed one or both of the sisters.

I will not conceal the fact, that as I mounted softly to the
second story I took out my pocket-knife, and, opening the
large blade, slipped it into my sleeve. It was a miserable
weapon, not two inches and a half long; but I grasped the
handle firmly and resolved to make it do. I was not alarmed,
for I am pretty stolid as regards the mysterious terrors of
darkness, and, being strong in muscle, am not much, troubled
by that instinctive shrinking from pain which is the founda-
tion of physical cowardice. Traversing the upper hall on
tiptoe, I entered the chamber from which Genevieve had just
escaped. Will any lady comprehend me and believe me
when I say that the only circumstance about that room
which frightened me was the impudent fact that I was in it?
The mystic articles of attire which lay over ehairs, the bed
with its coverlet thrown back, the two pillows, one dinted
and the other fresh, the pair of wash-stands, the very tow-
els even, all combined to make my heart beat horribly.
There was no one in the room, and nothing suspiciously out
of place, except that two chairs lay overturned at the bed-
side. The closet, a long, passage-like affair, only contained
a couple of hat-boxes, half a hundred dresses, as it seemed

 

 
214 ‘ SEACLIFF.

to me, hanging from hooks, and half a dozen more muddled
together on the floor in one corner. Respecting their sanc-
tity, I laid no profane hands on them, and withdgew my
bachelor presence. It was not till long, long afterwards that
I ever confessed to any one, how, on my way out of the
room, I stooped and kissed most gently, most-reverently, that
undinted pillow; yes, that one and not the other. I had just
performed this act of devotion when it struck me that I heard
a noise in the closet ; and so opening it again, I walked to the
end, and investigated the afore-mentioned pile of silks, delaines,
and muslins. Yes, there was a somebody hidden there, and a
very small somebody too, and I had him out in an instant,
kicking mildly and blubbering vigorously. , It was Willie
Westervelt, in his nightgown, and frightened. half out of his
infantile senses. ; . °h

“ Oh, please, please!” he begged. “ Willie will be a good
boy. Willie won’t tell any more ’tories.”

On looking at me and seeing who it was, he gave an
“Oh!” of astonishment, and stopped crying, although he
caught hold of my coat, as if for protection.

“ What is the matter with you?” said I. “What are you
here for, Willie? ”

“JT thought it was the devil,” he replied, whimpering
again. “He shan’t come and take Willie. Willie won’t tell
any more ’tories.” =

“No, of course he shan’t,” I asserted.. “Come, we'll go
and see your mother and sisters. Why, Willie, you have
seared them terribly. No, no, don’t ery. The devil shan’t
have you. I'll cut his tail off if he comes here.”

Willie gave a hysterical giggle, but was only half re-
assured by this heroic promise. I took him in my arms and
walked down stairs, calling out as I descended, “ Here he is;
here is Master Tom Thumb, the burglar.”

Mrs. Westervelt had gone, taking some back way to, fier
child, but the two sisters rushed into the hall and burst out
laughing at sight of us.
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 215

“ And was that all?” asked Genevieve, her color coming
back to her cheeks in a torrent.

“Yes, that was all. I found him in the closet, frightened
there, I fancy, by Mrs. Treat’s sermon.”

Just then carriage wheels rattled up to the front gate, and
loud jovial voices told that the revellers had returned. Shak-
ing back her dishevelled hair, Genevieve snatched the candle
from me with one hand, dragged Willie along with the other,
and escaped up stairs as her sister and I turned into the
parlor. I expected to find Mrs. Van Leer stark insensible,
but she had come to, as precipitately as she had gone off.
To: see the energy and fluency with which she set upon the
four truants, the moment they entered, one would have
thought that Bob and Somerville, and Hunter, as well as her
husband, had sworn to love, honor, and cherish her. The
two Van Leers, naturally unpolished, and jus® now, well
champagned, roared with laughter. Somerville was perfectly
sober, perfectly bland, regretful and apologetical:

“Most certainly, Mrs. Van Leer,” said he. “You are
quite right. We are exceedingly to blame for staying away
so late. Our single, solitary excuse is our confidence in the
heroism of Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

“Oh! Mr. Fitz Hugh is very well,” cried Mrs. Van Leer.
“OF course it was very kind in him to stay with us. If he
hadn’t, I should just have marched down to Mr. Treat’s and
spent the night there. But even Mr. Fitz Hugh is no
match for a house full of burglars.”

“ Burglars!” roared Bob. “Oh, good Lord! you don’t
mean to say burglars have been here! Ob Lord! Oh
Mary!”

Mary instinctively retreated before the excited youth, who
was advancing upon her as if he proposed to shiéld her in
his arms from the peril which had vanished.

“No burglar at all, Cousin Jule!” she exclaimed. “It
was- Willie—nobody but Willie.”

“That is so, Mrs. Van Leer,” I added. “ Willie is the
216 SEACLIFF.

rogue. Mrs. Treat’s lecture about the great roaring lion,
seems to have given him the nightmare. He woke up, ran
into his sisters’ room, knocked a chair over, crept into the
closet, and pulled down some dresses to hide himself. That
is the whole affair.”

“ Oh, that Mrs. Treat!” burst: forth Cousin Jule. “ Oh!
I wish that woman was sunk.. If I saw her drowning, I
wouldn’t throw her a stick to save her;—I wouldn't, I
wouldn’t, I tell you I wouldn’t—no such thing ;—I’d see her
drown, and glad of it. I’ve a great mind to slap Willie, too.
What business had he to alarm the whole house! Where's
Mrs. Westervelt ? I want to give her a lecture about bring-
ing up children.”

The poor woman still trembled from head to foot with
terror, and could hardly be held responsible for her confusion
of speech, @She rushed up stairs now, taking the only candle
that remained in the parlor, while Mary ran on before her,
forbidding her to touch Willie, or to scold him either, until
she could set him a better example of courage.

“ Keep a stiff upper lip, Jule,” laughed Henry Van Leer,
as he followed heavily on his wife’s track. Bob tramped
after him, boisterous with wine, excitement, and stupidity ;
and Somerville drew me along, observing in a whisper,
which I then hardly noticed, that the scene would be
amusing.

When we reached the open door of the room Mrs. Wester-.
velt was coddling and soothing Willie, who, like most children,
cried vehemently at the voice-of sympathy. I merely:
glanced within, and immediately started back, stung by ser-
pents. Genevieve had drawn forth the dresses which the.
little boy,had torn down from their hooks in the closet, and
was cheb them out one by one, preparatory to replacing
them. The one which she had in her hand at that moment.
was the fatal, plaid silk of dead leaf-colors.

How little we know of what is passing in the thoughts of
our fellow men, even when they stand so near us that their
A FRIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 217

heart-beats are almost distinguishable! Could Somerville
have seen what was in my spirit just then, he would have
stepped out of my reach. For one instant I contemplated
evil to him; then, turning on my heel, went down stairs
without a word of good-night ; went away from the house
without a glance backward.

No human being sinneth to himself or herself alone.
Sooner or later, by some unimaginable path or other, the
consequences of every guilt, however secret, however un-
shared, will steal upon some person innocent of it, and
stab him to the soul. Nature takes a broad revenge upon
wickedness, punishing not the culprit only, bit parent,
brother, sister, lover, friend, and even stranger. Because
there had begun in that family, a dark drama, in which
I had no part, and which I even hated to suspect, it had
been decreed that I should suffer the blight of hope and the
death of love. “No man liveth to himself, and no man
dieth to himself.”

I reached home, locked the front door after me, and was
creeping slowly up stairs in the dark, feeling as if there were
not another being in the world beside myself, when I heard
Ma Treat call to me from her bedroom, “ Lewy, is that
you?”

“Ay ay. What! awake yet?” I replied, rather im-
patiently, and with a vague sense of injury at being spoken
to.
“Yes, Lewy. I ha’n’t fetched a wink of sleep since I got
home; I’m as wakeful as a starved mouse, Lewy ; and all
for that little creetur. I’m so sorry I spoke sharp to him,
and fretted his little heart, and troubled Miss Mary. I'm
jest like a foolish old hen, that’s always trying to set on
other folkses’ eggs. My old father-that’s-gone-to-heaven’s
opinion was, that it took a mighty good Christian to mind his
own business ; and I’m beginning to come round to his idee.
Did the poor little heart cry very long, Lewy ?”

“J don’t think any great harm was done, Ma Treat,” said

10
218 SEACLIFF.

I, not choosing, for obvious reasons; to go into particulars on
the subject.

“Well, ’'m so glad! So he quieted away, and ‘got him-
self off to sleep, dear creetur, did he? The tongue can no
man tame, Lewy,” she added, forgetting for once to name
chapter and verse. “Now go to bed, dear, and good-
night.”

 
 

2S)

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SORROWS OF HUNTER.

AK any one noticed the tendency of scandalous stories
la to swarm suddenly now and then, like bees, and
m=“ settle upon some astonished head, which was far from
expecting such a visitation? You are quietly walking in
your path of duty or pleasure; you are minding your own
respectable or disrespectable business; you are paying no
particular attention to the world, nor it apparently to you;
when all at once you find yourself covered, blinded, perhaps
stung to frenzy; not a square inch of your moral cuticle
without its little winged squatter ; agony piercing every spot
not covered by the coat of a brave conscience. It was such
a flying and multitudinous trouble as this which one day over-
took my thoughtless friend, Mr. Frederick William Hunter.
The swarm, much as it astonished him, was one of his own
raising. Ever since the Capers paid their visit to Seacliff,
he had been haunting the mansion of the Capers. To his
cousins, (as he presumptuously called Mary and Genevieve,)
to all the Seacliff people, in fact, as well as to various male
intimates in Rockford, he joked and bragged a great deal
about the susceptibility of Miss Lottie. To Miss Lottie and
others he confided some amazing lies concerning an alleged
rivalry between the Westervelt sisters for his affections. He
had sent forth these falsehoods one by one, in the heedless-
ness of distracted vanity, never expecting to hear more of
230 SEACLIFF

them. Busy gossips collected and hived them; they bred
together, put forth stings, buzzed, swarmed ; and all at once
Mr. Hunter became sensible that he was an object of popular
opprobrium. Jolly fathers looked grave at him; coaxing
mothers asked him no more to tea; frisky daughters demutely
avoided his bow ; benevolent sewing-societies ripped his char-
acter to rags. Hunter no longer found the milk of human
kindness all cream, but skimmed, loppered even, and as sour
as vinegar. What did people think lhe had done? Some
responded with one story and some with another; but all
agreed in the fearful generalities of high! fast!! dissipated !!!
Vague horrible echoes of his immoralities reached me from
time to time, but nothing distinct, no interesting particulars,
until one Sunday afternoon, when Ma Treat returned from
“meeting” in Rockford. I saw, before she reached the gate,
that something had happened to disturb the good creature.
Her face was blazing red; she walked fast and fanned her-
self furiously ; there was a jerk in her gait, and a snap in
her elbow. I thought at first that she was waging battle
with Pa Treat, and wondered at it, for I had never known
them to quarrel. She sat down in the doorway, kept on
fanning herself, nodded her head from moment to moment,
but spake not, and seemed to be waiting for me to ask her
what was the matter.

“ So you had a pleasant afternoon, Ma Treat?” said I.

“Pleasant, Lewy? I guess I haven't. I feel as if I had
been among the congregation of the wicked. A wicked doer
giveth heed to false lips, and a liar giveth ear to a naughty
tongue: Proverbs, seventeenth, fourth. I’ve heard just the
biggest lies that Beelzebub ever dreamed of; lies, Lewy, fit
to ruin'a world,—regarded by the eye of faith; lies fit to
make a person’s ears burn right off. No, Lewy, I’ve had
precious little comfort in the sanctuary this day.”

“ But what are they, Ma Treat? Are they amusing, these
lies?”

“ Well, don’t you think, Lewy? they’ve gone and got up
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 221

stories about our young ladies up here, and that dirty, good-
for-nothing little Hunter. Just as though Miss Mary, or
Miss Genevieve either, would touch him with a toasting-fork !
I thought at first it was some of Miss Brunson-the-dress-
maker’s nonsense, and I was going to give her a piece of my
tuind about scandal and tittle-tattle ; but she said Mrs. Deacon
Frisby told her, and all Rockford knew of it. Says I, Miss
Brunson, Mrs. Deacon Frisby is a born simpleton, and all
Rockford an’t much better. Says I, Miss Brunson, what is
it ?—Says she, He makes very free with ’°em.—Says I, Which
of ’em ?—-Says she, One or both of ’em, I don’t know which.—
Says I, Miss Brunson, either Mrs. Frisby or all Rockford
lies, one or both of ’em, I don’t know which.”

Ma Treat set her arms akimbo, and faced me down with
as much severity as if I and Miss Brunson the dress-maker
were one and the same criminal. Dropping her elbows, and
resuming her fan, she continued—

“Furthermore, says I, Miss Brunson, when he begins to
trouble you or Mrs. Frisby, it will be time enough for you to
squall about it—They are both fifty odd, Lewy, and as plain
as horse-blocks.—She spunked up at that, and was going to
slap back at me, when up comes that poor, simpering, silly
Mrs. Deacon Frisby. Says I to her, What is this about the
Miss Westervelts?—Oh, mercy on us! says she; it was all
a mistake ; it wasn’t the Miss Westervelts that he was around;
it was Lottie Capers.—There! says I, looking at Miss Brun-
son, there goes a basket of lies, smash !—Lewy, she just stood
and choked ; if she’d had her scissors, I reckon she’d stuck
’em into me. Oh, she’s a tartar! but I guess she catched it
there for about a quarter.of an hour. Such a lecter as I read
off about governing the tongue! Well, that was only the
beginning of the battle. I just had to go and take the town,
down. Everybody had the stories, some about Miss Mary,
some about Miss Genevieve, some, and mostly, about Miss
Lottie Capers, and some about they didn’t know who, nor
what. I talked every minute between meetings, scarcely
222 SEACLIFF.

stopping to swallow my pie. All through the afternoon meet-
ing too, I was thinking over the stories, and didn’t hear a
word of the sermon. I couldn’t control my mind, Lewy, no
more than if it was a cart-load of crickets.”

I was puzzled and troubled by Ma Treat’s narrative.
Could it be that the Rockford gossips had got an inkling of
the Westervelt mystery, and had only made the mistake of
putting Hunter in the place of Somerville? Could it be that
the little skipping-jack was himself the demon of the intrigue?
Or was the whole farrago of scandal a mere mistake, hatched
from some of the absurd fibs which Hunter was in the daily
habit of laying ?

“ Do you suppose that the Rockford people ies become
seriously prejudiced against the Misses Westervelt?” I in-
quired.

“ Well, not so very es perhaps, after all, Lewy; I guess
some of ’em are more prejudiced against me, just now ; for I’ve
given it to ’em long and strong, I tell you; here a little, and
there a little more. Then, on the whole, most folks think the
whole affair is one of Lottie Caperses.- She’s a soft, highty-
tighty piece, always flying about after the beaux like a hen
after grasshoppers, and might do something foolish without
being a bit unnateral. And then again, all the real respect-
able folks say it’s nothing but one of that little dirty Hunter's
whoppers. For a small man, he can tell the biggest lies,
Lewy! Can’t he, Pa Treat?” ,

_ “Real light-headed feller ;—real rigajig,” affirmed Pa
Treat. :

-« And I guess that now all the stories will blow over, like
a swarm of mosquitoes,” continued Ma Treat. “ But if I
was you, Lewy, I would talk to that little Hunter, and give
him a piece of your mind.”

I did indeed resolve to talk to that little Hunter., He
saved me the trouble of looking him up and broaching the
delicate subject, by coming to my room early the next morn-
ing and opening the scandal-bag himself. He appeared
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 223

wretchedly cast down, and quite forgot his conceit for a time
under the pressure of his troubles.

“ My dear fellow, I wish you could help me,” said he, curl-
ing up in a chair as quietly and meekly as a sick kitten.
“Tm in an awful scrape, and haven’t the least idea how I
shall get out of it. Look at me!” he added impressively, at
the same time throwing his long hair back from his temples.
“Am J aman that you would take fora Don Juan? Do I
bear the impress of a libertine nature? If so, my coun-
tenance does me the foulest injustice; for I assure you, Fitz
‘Hugh, most solemnly and upon my sacred word of honor,
that I-hold such a character in perfect abomination; if I
-were in rags and a pickpocket, I should consider myself a
finer gentleman than the most elegant Lovelace.”

“TI have no doubt of it,” said I. Hunter's vanity could
not have been crushed by rags, nor a sense of infamy.

“Thank you, Fitz Hugh! I confess that my nature is
susceptible and amative: I can love woman easily, earnestly,
passionately ; ; I admit it and am proud of it; but, Fitz Hugh,
I always respect her. I would sooner tear my heart palpi-
tating from my breast, than pluck a single bud from the
Eden of Innocence.”

“ Stop a moment, Hunter, I don’t mean to impeach your
sincerity ; still, I wish to observe, that these sentiments are
diametrically opposite to some that I heard you put forth last
week.”

““ Don’t be hard on me, Fitz Hugh,” he interrupted implor-
ingly. “I talked like a dunce—I know it. I was carried
away for a moment—but only for a moment—by the social
sophistries of our witty and fascinating, but, I begin to fear,

godless friend, Somerville. I was a fool, but not a knave,
believe me! On the contrary, ever since I was old enough
to adore female loveliness, I have—I assure you, my friend—
adored female purity. I have regarded it as the fairest
flower of the widespread fields of humanity,—the most price-
less gem of the solemn cavern of time. Such being my real
224 SEACLIFF.

sentiments, you can faintly imagine my indignation and dis-
gust when I am accused of despising that flower and insult-
ing that gem. These country gossips, these boorish tattlers
around here, assert that I have attempted to lead astray from
the path to Heaven one of the noblest, sweetest girls that
ever made physical beauty more entrancing. by adding to
it the angelic pinions of moral beauty.. That. girl,—Lottie
Capers,—is worth them all. I too, my friend, feel that I am
the mioral equal of any selected dozen of these babbling
tustics: Yet my name has been used for a tar-brush to
blacken hers. What a position for a member of the church !”:
- “Do you mean that Miss Capers is a church member?”
I inquired.

He blushed, hesitated, and then stammered out with a
queer look, half slyness and half shame, “No:—I am, Fitz
Hugh. I was received into the college church six months
ago, as one of the converts of last winter’s revival. Don’t
laugh at me. I know I’m a scabby sheep, and shouldn’t have
gone near the fold. But that’s another unlucky scrape that
I’ve got into and can’t get out of. I was carried away by the
general rush, passed a good examination before the deacons,
and really thought that I had my spiritual diploma. But I
couldn’t. keep up to the mark, and my religion for the. last
three months has been a perpetual flunk and fizzle, I wish
to Heaven that I was comfortably excommunicated! It has
all come of those cursed powows and freshman-hazings, and
initiations, and burials of Euclid, and that sort of thing.
They are good fun, but they are horrid stumbling-blocks to.
piety.” le

“Then why do you engage in them ?” I asked.

“Why, if we don’t,” said he, with a curious expression
which seemed to be a struggle of jest and earnest—“ if we
don’t, we lose our influence over our unconverted class-mates.”.

“ At all events, you ought not to talk like a skeptic. I
have heard you do so repeatedly. I have heard you when
you really seemed to think it a remarkable proof of your tol-
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 225

erance,—of your consideration for the feelings of religious
people.—that you did not flatly deny the existence of a
Supreme Being.”

“Oh Lord! I know it,” he groaned. “It’s all Somer-
ville’s work, Fitz Hugh. ‘That man is irresistibly seduc-
tive.”

“Well, well; let this pass. Don’t let us lose time over
your religion. But you must set about crushing these scan-
dalouS rumors immediately. Do you know that certain
people connect your name impertinently with the Misses
Westervelt ? ”

He seemed thunderstruck, turned pale, and sat with open
mouth, unresponsive.

“You must contradict all that,” I said sternly ; and do it
at once, before you pay attention to the nonsense concerning
Miss Capers.”

“T will—I will,” he gasped, while the sweat gathered on
his forehead. “But for God’s sake, Fitz Hugh, don’t men-
tion this last affair up at Seacliff. They might think that I
—that I—had been—been lying about them.”

I felt certain that he had, although as yet I possessed no
positive knowledge of it.

“T’m sure I don’t know what I’ve said,” he added, drop-
ping his brows with a pretence at recollection. “I give you
my solemn word of honor that I respect the very ground they
tread upon. I pledge you my sacred honor as a gentleman
that I would strike that man to earth who should dare to
speak ill of them. Oh Heaven! I wish I could—what shail
I do, my dear fellow ?”

“ Why, behave like a man. Cleanse your own name and
the names of these ladies. Go to Rockford this afternoon,
and contradict the scandals and wallop the scandal-mongers.
It will be easy work to clear the Misses Westervelt ; nobody
has dared to whisper much evil of them. As for Miss Ca-
pers,” I added maliciously, “ you will, of course, marry her.”

“Of course, of course,” he replied eagerly. “No!” he
10%
226 SEACLIFF.

added in the next instant. “I can’t go so far as that; can’t.
sacrifice myself quite to that extent.”

“ Sacrifice yourself! I thought she was one of the vila
sweetest girls that ever made physical beauty more entranc-
ing by adding to it the angelic pinions of moral beauty. Isn't
that sort of woman good enough for you?”

“ Fitz Hugh,” he replied, putting himself in one of his hes:
roic attitudes, “I Aave loved that creature,—loved her to
distraction ; but the charm is gone,—my volcano is exfinct.”

“No matter,” said I. “You are equally bound to offer
yourself, and, if she accepts, (as she will, of course,) to make
her the best husband you can.”

“ Why, the fact is,—I,—I’m not quite free,” he stammercd,
“T am implicated with a girl in ; that is, a girl or two.
Oh! no scandal, you understand; only an engagement, or
something very like it.” t

“ Hunter,” said I, “ you show an admirable faith in a guid-
ing Providence. This is not the first time that I have known
you ‘to commence a story without the least idea how you
would end it.”

“Don’t be hard on me, Fitz Hugh,” he begged. “TI really
am engaged to somebody at 3—T'll give you my oath
upon it.

“Only engaged! Then you are more bound here than
there. You must break off all your college flirtations, and
offer yourself instantly to Miss Capers, whom you have been
the cause of injuring.”

~“Well! Ill do it—I must—I will!” he exclaimed, start-
ing up and lifting his right hand as if taking an oath. “I’m
bound as a gentleman and a man of honor to do it. But,
Fitz Hugh, I tell you what! it will be a trial; it will be a
worse job than joining the Church ;—I shall regret it all my
life. Come, I may.as well make a clean breast and tell you
the exact truth. I never did love that girl enough to marry
her; never meant anything more serious than a trifling flir-
tation ;—a week or two of amorous dalliance, innocent and

 

 
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 227

coy. And now, to be entrapped in this absurd style,—to be
driven into the pitfall of matrimony by a yelping pack of
village gossips,—it is enough to drive one to suicide. I tell
you honestly and solemnly that I would surrender half my
future to escape the gulf that I see yawning at my feet with
Miss Lottie Capers at the bottom of it. She is sure to ac-
cept, you know ; girls can’t. resist biting at a student. Why,
sir, I’ve known one of my classmates to be engaged to three
damsels in at once; not boarding-school misses either,
but young ladies in society ; every one of them his senior by
a couple of years or so; and he all the while making a per-
fect rush among the affections of a fourth. Just think of
what I am losing by engaging myself to a girl who will make
me stick to it or sue me. It would be just like that father of
hers to sue me if I flunked.”

“T am exceedingly sorry for you,” said I, with an affecta-
tion of pity. “It is a miserable situation for a man of feeling
and honor.” /

“Stop! a salvatory idea!” he exclaimed. “ Fitz Hugh,
I have a plan which will combine honor and happiness ;
which will enable me to do what a gentleman should, and yet
escape Miss Capers. As I have compromised her in the
opinion of this stupid public, I will submit to an engagement,
and then induce her to break it by getting myself beastly
drunk, and lying an hour or two in the Rockford gutters, if
the miserable village has any. Make me your compliments,
my dear fellow ; the conception is clever and all my own. It
is a desperate course, indeed ; it is casting my Christian char-
acter among swine in a frightfully literal manner ; but then
it is a very clear case that I shall have to sacrifice something.”

“ Certainly, and nothing could be less valuable, it seems to

me, than your Christian character; the swine can’t harm it
‘much, I fancy. Now, suppose we start immediately for
Rockford. I will call with you on the Capers, and back your
suit with the father. There is no other way. As your
‘friend, I must insist upon it. Come along.”

 
228 SEACLIFF.

I was talking all the while ina sort of angry banter, but
I looked immensely resolute and even savage, as if I were
profoundly in earnest. Let no one think that I was too hard
upon the mendacious little blackguard. It was right to pun-
ish him for his impertinent and mischievous falsehoods, and
it was only fair to the injured Miss Lottie to give her the
choice of marrying or sacking him. He drew back from my
proffered arm with an air of consternation oddly mingled
with shame. ff

“ Now, look here, Fits Hugh,” he implored. “Now, what
is the use of pushing a gentleman on in this desperate way:
No no! I can’t do it; there are certain reasons why I can’t.
Come, I'll just make a clean breast, and have done with the
whole cursed thing,” he added, sinking into a chair, the pic-
ture of perspiring humiliation.

“Out with it, then!” exclaimed I, drawing myself up
grimly dignified. “What is the reason you can’t-offer ae
self to Miss Capers?”

« Because I have offered myself, and she refused me,” he
stammered. “'That’s the truth, so help me God, Fitz Hugh,
and I swear it on my sacred word of ac, I do indeed, as I
am a gentleman.” :

He was fairly whimpering now, and looked so ridiculously
ashamed of himself that I could hardly help laughing aloud.

“Incredible!” I exclaimed, pushing my hair up and glar-
ing mock-heroics at him.

“Tt is positively true, I do assure you,” he whined. e],
put my heart and hand at her disposal a week ago, and, she
rejected both with a bland firmness which destroyed hope.”

And since then you have been revenging yourself by
promulgating lies to her discredit, I thought. The like has
happened before.

“TJ have cause for wretchedness, you see,” he sontinted :- —
“overwhelming cause, without the lash of scandal. Fitz
Hugh, it seems to me that my present shvicnus would afford
abundant material for an agitating romance.”
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 229

His vanity awakened at this idea, and, rising, he paraded
the room, talking with a faint echo of his accustomed magnil-
oquence. “IT have done my duty; I have played the part
of a man of honor; and my reward is to suffer. I believe
that I have strength of soul enough to carry out the plot by
going frankly to Capers, braving his unreasonable, but pater-
nal and therefore noble rage, and swearing to him that his
child is worthy of his love. This evening, my friend, let us
be at Rockford and hasten the dénowement.”

’ “Give me your hand, Hunter!” said I, emulating his
melodrama, and biting down a smile. “That resolution does
honor to you and to humanity. I am with you to the end.”

He favored me with a sentimental shake, and walked away
with a gait not materially less pompous than usual. After
tea we borrowed the single-buggy of Henry Van Leer, and
drove over to Rockford, pulling up at the ponderous pine
fence which fronted Mr. Capers’ showy but clapboard man-
sion. A booby Irish girl conducted us, unannounced, into the
presence of the master of the house. He reposed as an
anaconda might, his small head laying against the back of a
rocking-chair, while his lank body rested on the outer edge:
of the seat, and his extremities stretched far away into the
middle of the room. The American is the only man who
knows what to do with the small of his-back. He sits on it.
No other nation has made this discovery.

Mr. Capers had a handkerchief over his face, which he
removed at the noise of our entrance.’ I noticed that the ex-
pression of his long and coffin-shaped countenance was even
more funereal than usual, and that his small eyes were red
and moist as if he had been weeping copiously. He stared
at us in a sort of stupefaction at first, and then, making a
sudden spring, collared Hunter.

“ Where is my daughter? Where is she, you little mon-
ster?” he shouted, shaking my scared companion as easily
as a dog shakes an old hat.

“Mr. Capers !—leave go of me!” gurgled the throttled
230 SEACLIFF.

youth. “ You are choking me. Don’t, sir! or I shall have
to strike in self-defence. Ob, Mr. Capers |—do not force me
to—to lose my respect for your gray hairs!”

While talking thus in distracted jerks, he was dangling
here and there about the room, at the end of the long arm of.
Mr. Capers, who made the most of his time, feeling that -it
was short because his strength was going. After my first
moment of stupefaction, I interfered, and separated the two
feeble gentlemen, without any perceptible resistance. Capers
subsided into his rocking-chair, and gave way to a burst of
tears.

“Now, sir! what does this mean, sir?” shouted Hunter,
ruffling his own feathers as he observed the drooping pinions
of his antagonist. “I demand an explanation. If it were
not for your reverend senility, sir, I would take bodily satis-
faction.”

“Where is my daughter? Bring back my daughter!”
returned Capers, sobbing.

“JT haven’t seen your daughter. I don’t know anything
about your daughter,” asserted Hunter.

“She disappeared this morning, sir,” observed Capers i ina
piteous whisper, turning his tearful eyes upon me. “TI hope
‘you will pity a bereaved father’s affliction. I have been
robbed of my child, sir.”

“T am astonished, sir; I am truly grieved,” said I. “ Still,
I think I can assure you that Mr. Hunter has had nothing to
do with her disappearance. I give you my word that he has
passed the entire day at Seacliff, and that Miss Capers has
not been seen nor heard of there.”

“My friend Mr. Fitz Hugh is quite right, og I can
vouch for his perfect veracity in this respect, sir,” put in
Hunter. “As a gentleman, Mr. Capers, and as a man of
honor, I declare that. I know nothing of this disappearance
of your daughter—nothing of its cause—nothing, sir, of its
nature. I called this evecing solely to offer you my al
thies and my assistance.”
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 231

This closing assertion was of course a fib, but I did not
think it worth while to contradict it.

“In that case, Mr. Hunter, I ought to apologize for my
violence,” said our afflicted friend. “Ido apologize. I beg
your pardon. I trust you will excuse a man whose brain is
shaken by such a calamity.”

“Mr. Capers, I forgive you with all my heart,” returned

Hunter solemnly. “Think no more of it. Your character
is still venerable to me. I admire your piety and respect
your pugnacity. More than that, I pity your misfortune.
What can I do for you, sir? My whole manhood, bodily
and spiritual, is at your service.”
- “She disappeared this morning, sir,” repeated Capers,
looking at me and speaking in the slow, meek monotone
which was peculiar to him. “ We have not found a trace of
her. I went to her mother’s grave, thinking that she might
be there, decking it as usual with flowers. I had the whole
town searched,—sent telegraphs everywhere. No one had
heard of her. At last I found a letter in her room, directed
to me. It stated that she preferred to marry without my
consent, rather than die of a broken heart with it. I don’t
know who she has gone to marry, sir. Several persons
wanted her. She was very attractive to gentlemen, sir; she
was like her mother in that respect,—though not so hand-
some. When I saw Mr. Hunter, I thought that perhaps he
had carried her off. ‘That was the reason I ran at you, Mr.
Hunter. I beg your pardon, sir. I know that you sympa-
thize with me. I know that you appreciated her. I thank
you for it.” ‘

“Mr. Capers—say no more about it,” exclaimed Hunter
in a quavering voice. “I appreciated—I adored her. If I
could find the man who has taken advantage of her youth
and confiding innocence, I would, be his Nemesis,—I would
destroy him, sir.”

“T thank you, sir,’ replied Capers, mildly. “Your inten-
tions are good. But perhaps you had better not destroy him,
232° SEACLIFF.

sir. It might pain my daughter. -Come, let us go to her
mother; let us visit the faithful departed. I was about to:
start for the burying-ground when you came. Shall we go,
gentlemen ?.”

“With mournful pleasure, Mr. Capers,” responded Hun-
ter, earnestly. “There is something solemnizing, restraining, |
and sanctifying in the churchyard. Standing by the graves -
of our friends, death seems near, eternity awful, and the
promises precious.” .

He started and glanced sidewise at me, seeming to hope.
that I had not heard him. For one moment the burnt-out
passion of the last revival had flickered up in the poor con-
temptible backslider’s heart, and he had repeated half-uncon-
sciously one of his old pious exhortations, as a drunkard on
the morning after his debauch will drowsily hum the chorus
of a drinking-song. So ashamed was he of this momentary
effervescence of devout feeling, that, when he met my eye,
he absolutely gave a faint wink, as if to assure me that he
was merely quizzing Capers. But the effort at deceit and
bravado was ineffectual, and for one instant his countenance
was a crimson mass of humiliation.

A walk of five minutes brought us to the ancient cemetery
of Rockford. Two hundred years ago the Puritan founders
of the town had selected this sterile stretch of gravelly
earth as a very poor bit for tillage, and therefore an econom-
ical and safe asylum for their honored dead. The solemn
husbandry of the sexton had made barrenness fertile, and
clothed the spot with a denser, darker verdure than any of
the fields about it. Long and vigorous were the grasses,
multitudinous and bright the wild flowers, which had their
roots in the graves, and drew their life from the death below.
Wonderful, terrible, and beautiful is the chemistry of the
churchyard. Men who, while they walked the earth, were
hard, cold, unsympathizing, unpoetic, become changed in
nature when they are laid under earth, and begin shortly to
spring up’ in tender turf, to bloom forth in sweet-breathed
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 233

roses and violets. They rejoice in the rains of spring; they
bow gratefully before the winds of summer. They are more
humble and gentle than they were once haughty and cynical.
Formerly they had not a thought nor an emotion for the
beauty of nature, and now they are transformed into a por-
tion of that beauty. Really, when I look upon certain of my
fellow creatures, persons of the baser sort, grovelling, de-
formed and despicable natures, it sometimes seems to me
that it will be a species of promotion for them, a higher grade
of development, when they are metamorphosed into grave-
yard thistles and mullens. A man had better be grass for
an undertaker’s horse than tread the earth but to stamp it
with violence and pollution.

Mr. Capers and Hunter walked straight toward a part of
the cemetery chiefly devoted to the moderns, as was shown
by a fashionable congregation of marble pillars and obelisks
which gleamed whitely through the dusk of evening. I
lingered here and there, to pull the moss from the face of
some half-sunken brown headstone, and to spell out the by-
gone virtues of the venerable sleeper below. A man must
needs study epitaphs to get an idea of the moral decadence
of the human race in his own generation. I believe that I
am not at all uncharitable toward my personal friends and
acquaintance, when I declare that no such spotless and
attractive people exist now as have mouldered away in our
ancient churchyards, if headstones may be trusted. What a
shining catalogue of saints might be gathered from those
eulogistic tablets! What a pity that we have only such
brief and dry biographies of creatures so elevated and exem-
plary, whose whiteness of soul should have been perpetuated
by both statuary and stationery, and who doubtless were not
because God took them! Or is it possible that these ser-
mons in stones are too good to be true, and that the carver
made noble what the Creator but made tolerable? Let us
imagine a modest ghost,—who has been pacing the church-
-yard penitently all night, or doing some spiritual deed of
234 ’ SEACLIFF.

comfort in the neighborhood,—returning to his grave in the
morning and glancing at the inscription before he glides
again under the stone. “A good husband,” he readsy and
says, “ Ah! but I was often harsh and bitter.”

“A faithful father,” he continues, and begins to dont
whether he is not at the wrong slab. 2

“A most exemplary Christian,” the sentence concludes.:
Here he holds up both his hands with amazement, exclaim-.
ing, “ Alas! either men have lied concerning me, or this is
not my place.” Be

It is doubtless a hard thing to compose an epitaph, First,
you must satisfy the friends of the incomparable deceased,:
and then you must satisfy the carping public, and lastly, you
would like to satisfy yourself. Harder still would the task
be if we had to consult and content the dead; and that, not
because he would be vain, but because he would be humble
and truthful. I never find one of these vaunting headstones
defaced, but what I suspect that the ghost did it.

If ever a departed spirit had reason to obliterate its own
epitaph for very shame at its fulsome panegyric, it was the
spirit of the lamented Mrs. Capers. Such a list of virtues,
such a catechism full of excellences, as the bereaved husband
read to us from the superb glistening obelisk! It was like
the epitaphs which will be written during the millennium.

“T got that up myself, with the help of my sister and our
good minister,” said he. “I only left out one important point
of her character. She was remarkable tasty in dress, sir;
but somehow I couldn’t bring that in nicely. I’ was very.
sorry, sir, for it was one of the chief things in her; but pers
haps; on the whole, it wasn’t a proper idea for a graveyard,
Oh, sir! that lady was a treasure to me. I never appreci+
ated her properly until she left me. Nor I never quite
knew how much I lost in her, until to-day, that my daughter
quit me so mysteriously. If Mrs. Capers had lived, she
would have guided Lottie, and Lottie would have been here
this minute, instead of wandering far away from the tomb
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 235

where her mother’s form and her father’s heart are buried.
together.”

There was a sincerity of emotion, a pathos of single-heart-
edness about this very singular man, which occasionally
almost hid his simplicities and eccentricities, as the flowers
of a plant will sometimes overbloom and half cover its leaves.
T could not help reverencing him at that moment, and in-
stinctively removed my hat in a sudden start of sympathy.

. “Yes, my wife! our Lottie ought to be here!” he re-
peated in a louder tone.

“She is here papa,” whispered a girlish voice behind us;
and then came a rush of female vesture, a sob, and a scream.
There was the runaway Lottie hanging on her father’s neck,
kissing him and crying in his shirt-bosom.

“My child! my child!” shouted Capers, grappling her
round the waist, and sticking his head over her shoulder,
after the fashion of stage-fathers.

“T have returned; -pardon me, papa,” whimpered the
young lady, while her eyelids dripped like eaves upon the
paternal linen.

“ You shall leave me no more ;—I forgive all,” cried the
father.

_ It was perfectly sentimental, and melodramatic. Nothing
was wanting in place, time, action, words, voice, or gesture, to
heighten the delusion, and make me believe that I was sur-
veying the closing scene, the agonizing dénowement, of a pop-
ular play in some third rate-theatre. Precisely the same
thing, done on the boards, would have tapped the lachrymal
glands of a thousand industrious, unromantic, commonplace
people. Poor novelists and playwrights are perpetually cari-
‘eaturing real life, with a faith in human stupidity which pays
us no compliment; but here real life, in the hands of two
simpletons, was absolutely made to caricature the work of
poor novelists and playwrights. That nothing might Jack to
the romance of. the occasion, an unexpected recognition took
place. I had just restored my hat to its astonished head, and
236 : SEACLIFF.

backed off a yard or two from the whirlwind of emotion
which was raging beside me, when a hand was laid on my
shoulder and some one behind me said, “ How are you, Fitz
Hugh? Ain’t you going to speak to me?”

The voice was familiar, notwithstanding a tremble in it,
and helped me to recognize the faintly starlit form and face
of Barker, the friend with whom I had dined on the day I
first saw Seacliff.

“Why, Barker! how do you find yourself?” returned. 1
“ What brings you here? ”

“T have the honor of being the husband of that lady,” he
whispered, in a sort of sob of anxiety.

“Oh! Isee. Well, now is your time; fall on your ines
Pll make away with myself. See you to-morrow when all is
happily settled.” :

Seizing Hunter, who had stood in a staring trance ever
since the sudden appearance of the runaway, I gently.
dragged him out of the yard, so as to leave.the family at full
liberty to arrange its dislocated affairs. He was perfectly
submissive, walked like other people instead of skipping, and
made no disturbance beyond a little mild moaning.

“Oh! what a moment!” he murmured, when we had
reached the high-road. .“ Ah, Fitz Hugh! one such experi-
ence is enough for a man’s life. I supposed that I had lost a
noble woman ; but I see that I have let slip a seraph.”

I could hardly help laughing at the ninny. He really
thought that the melodramatic scene which we had just wit-
nessed was full of the highest earnestness and the purest
pathos. To me the only wonder was, how a grave, serious
fellow like Barker, a man not brilliant, but uncommonly sin-
cere and practical, could have been caught by such a senti-
mental little goose as Miss Lottie. However, many a sensi-
ble man before him has saved up all his weakness for his
choice of a wife.

- The rest of the evening was spent in contradicting what-
ever rumors may have existed to the injury of the Misses
THE SORROWS OF HUNTER. 237

Westervelt. It.was nauseous work for Hunter to go from
crony to crony, eating his own words, but he did it faithfully ;
this minor trial being much lightened perhaps by the remem-
brance of the gigantic bereavement which had just over-
whelmed him. “ Why, old feller,” was the usual reply of his
gossips, a smile of friendly contempt meanwhile spreading
over their faces,—« why, old feller, I never believed it;
knew it was one of your stories ;—girls like them ain’t a
going to stand your kissing.” _

It was quite characteristic of Hunter that he soon began
to plume himself ‘on the disappointments and humiliations of
this memorable evening. He thought that they made him an
interesting personage, a very hero of the furnace of affliction,
fit to excite the wildest wonder and affection of woman.
Vanity is the most deceptive and derisive of practical jokers,
leading its multitudinous victims to flaunt their follies and
misfortunes, their short-comings and vices, their every peculi-
arity in short, however witless and unimportant, before the
eyes of a grinning world. How many a man among us has
boasted himself as being somebody because he differed from
certain other men in a thing of no consequence ; because, for
instance, he hated pancakes, or turtle soup, or some other
dish which the generality of us have agreed to admire!
While we laugh at Hunter, therefore, tricked out as he is
with conceit, let us not forget that other and more enlight-
ened satisfaction of laughing at ourselves.
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVIL

THE MYSTERY A TORMENT.

EVERAL days had ‘elapsed since I beheld in the
ng hands of Genevieve that abominable plaid which
haunted Seacliff in such phantom fashion, disturbing
me whenever it met me as much as a ghost might have done.
I had reflected a great deal and very sadly on the probabili-
ties that she was the “guilty woman” of the mystery, and
had at last resolved that her error, no matter what it might
be, should not destroy nor even diminish my esteem for
her sister. I was saying just this to myself, one morning, as
I walked soberly up to Seacliff. Entering the veranda, I
met Mary Westervelt dressed in that very silk, that, hateful
commixture of dead-leaf colors, which had become to my mind
the emblem of some unspeakable sin or calamity. The first
shock of that revelation, or what I took to be a revelation,
was woful. It seemed as if all that my heart loved and all
its powers of loving had suddenly become corruption ; as if
the object of my passionate respect and the respect itself, the
idol and the idolater, fell dead corpses together. The only
words which I uttered were, “It is you, then!” '
It was not to her presence there before me that I referred;
not to that every-day circumstance, now become suddenly
insignificant ; but to that other, which just then opened like a
universe upon me; to the thought that now she must be the
object of my anxieties and my suspicions. Earnest and even
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 239

most painful as the meaning of that short sentence was to
me, I spoke it with far more calmness than I have sometimes
been able to speak when my heart was full of hope and anx-
ious to utter itself in the kindliest, lovingest words that the
human soul conceives. I was petrified by the death-like
power and completeness of the calamity, and resigned myself
to it with that nerveless, abject submission which a culprit
yields to his executioner. I know that I did not start, and I
believe that there was no violent nor very unusual expression
on my countenance. Men receive such things differently,
according to their natures, rather than according to the nature
of the case.

“Yes, it is I,’ she replied ; “ that is, I feel as sure as usual
of my identity.”

She gave a glance at my abstracted, settled face, and
colored a little. Perhaps she thought that I was about to.
resume that sentimental conversation, which Master Willie’s
nightmare had interrupted a week before, and push it to its
natural conclusion. She uttered presently some other remark,
which struck on my hearing, but made no impression on my
mind, so that, if I understood it, I forgot it in the same
second. At that moment a person called to her from the
library. I did not then notice at all whose voice it was,
although a while afterwards, perhaps an hour, it suddenly
occurred to me with perfect distinctness that it was her
father’s. She asked me to walk into the parlor, and when
I replied, very tranquilly, that I thanked her but preferred
to stay in. the veranda, she begged to be excused and

- left me.

I sat down and sank into such a revery as a man has when
he is recovering from a fever; when his mind is faint and it
is occupation enough to watch the flies or count the spots on
the wall. Such a misfortune as I could not have conceived
the day before, without shuddering at myself for the thought,
had fallen upon me; and yet I could not be astonished at it,
could not call up resolution to deny it, could not even rage at
240 SEACLIFF.

it, but lay calmly paralyzed. While I supposed that Gene-
vieve was the “guilty woman,” I had raved by myself; but
not so now, because a far deeper and more poisoned hurt
than that had pierced me. A man whose teeth have been
shattered, or whose hand is lacerated, may suffer anguish; but
he whose every limb is broken and whose entire body is
mangled, lies in an almost painless calm; and as it is with
this last, so is it with him whose soul is suddenly bruised by
some gigantic affliction. Furthermore, it is certain that every
serious wound, physical or spiritual, inflicts less pain at the
moment of reception than during countless moments of equal
duration for long afterward. I was now in this first stage of
suffering, when the lifeblood flows away, but when there are
no writhings of anguish. Not yet could fever set in, and in-
flammation, and that slowly-torturing struggle, between the
powers of vitality on one side and the strength of the evil on
the other, which must be fought through before health can be
won again. To the mind, as well as to the body, it is the
cure which is the most painful, and not the blow. I do not
wish to convey the impression that I made all these reflec-
tions, or any of them, at that time. I did not philosophize ;
but I felt deeply and memorably.

After a while I thought that I heard the quick, quiet feet
of Miss Westervelt returning. I started up, hurried down
the steps, turned the corner of the house, and slunk away
among the closest thickets and arbors of the garden. Strange
as it may seem to the uninitiated in such mysteries, I dreaded
to fook her in the face as much as if I were the culprit and
she the accuser.

What romantic boy has not ‘imagined himself the. hero of
some such position as mine was then? How often in- my
teens had I pictured myself as loving some girl who would
not accept of me, and whom the finger of a retributive justice
had suddenly unveiled to me, and perhaps. to the world, as
totally unworthy of love or respect! Oh! I had fairly revelled
in the contempt with which I would treat such a dishonored
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 241

creature; had thought of myself as petrifying her with an
eye of scorn, rejecting her worthless heart now that she
humbly sought to lay it at my feet, and retaining her in my
memory only as the Philistines brought Samson into their
temple, for an object of hate and derision. Well, the reality
or something like the reality of that delightful dream had
come at last, and how had it found me? Shrinking behind
a clump of lilacs, weak, abject, purposeless, and looking the
image of shame-faced guilt.

I was still pacing up and down across the igs of a
bush, which, as I remember, gave me just three steps either
way, when Mr. Westervelt came hastily down the walk and
saluted me. He quite puzzled me with his ceremonious
greeting and his inquiries after my health; for at first I did
not remember that he had been absent from Seacliff, and that
he must have returned to it that very morning. He took my
arm and drew me on into a more extended promenade. I
noticed presently that he was talking, and I wished to myself
that he would stop his noise ; but I retain no more recollec-
tion of his words than of what. tune the garden birds then
whistled. After a while he suddenly awakened my attention
by pronouncing the name of his eldest daughter. Then, all
at once, I listened eagerly, stepping as it were into the midst
of his conversation, so that it necessarily seemed to me that
he had entered on his subject with singular abruptness. He
spoke in his usual hesitating, uncertain, almost stammering
manner, drawing close to me all the while, but rarely looking
me in the eye. “I naturally want to see her—and, in fact,
both of them—settled,” were the first words fully comprehen-
sible to me. “ My constitution is not vigorous, and the—the
course of nature generally carries off the parent first, so that
my feeling on the subject is—is natural. Ha? don’t you
think so?”

_ “Of course; quite so,” said I, wondering what he was at and
why he talked to me about getting Miss Westervelt settled.

“T suppose,” he continued, “ that you can see how she has
il
242 SEACLIFF.

been—been educated. Disadvantageously, I am afraid—dis-
advantageously ;—that is, in a certain way—excellently in
most respects. Poor girls, brought up rich,—that is the
misery of our times, sir, particularly here in America. Poor
girls, brought up rich,—yes, sir. Well, what’s the result?
ha ha” (feeble laughter). “The result is a rich husband, or
domestic unhappiness. Ha? quite right, am I not? Ex-
actly so. A poor girl brought up rich must have a rich
husband or be wretched.”

“ Quite right ; exactly so,” I repeated after him, as stolidly
as Johnny Treat recited his catechism. He was dreadfully
embarrassed with his subject, and got along very slowly and
lumberingly, unaided as he was by questions or pertinent
replies from his stupefied companion.

“T suppose you think it rather singular,” he resumed, after
hemming and hawing for half a minute ;—“I suppose it must
appear quite strange to you, sir, that you should be admitted
—or rather that I should force you to become a confidant in
the affairs and prospects of my family. But the truth is that
we are under such—hem—obligations to you for the life,
perhaps, of our eldest daughter, that we feel bound not to
conceal from you anything of—hem—of particular impor-
tance. It is not important, I am aware, to you, ha ha” (same
feeble attempt at laughter). “Of course not; but quite so to
us, you see; quite so.”

“O yes,” said I, staring vacantly at the irregular bridge
of his thin Roman nose; “ quite so; of course.”

Why was he making these disclosures to me? Did he
suspect that I stood in the way of his plan for a marriage
between Miss Westervelt and the ready-moneyed Robert, and
was he warning me off from ground that for financial reasons
he wished another to occupy? I began to comprehend that
some such purpose was driving him onward through this
painful wilderness of stammering.

“ Just so,” he prosecuted. “My daughter has—hem—I

should rather say that Robert has—but doubtless you have
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 243.

perceived it ?z—has become interested in her, and, in short, I
have reason to suppose, has offered himself to her.” (He
spoke rapidly now, as if. anxious to hurry over a debatable
point.) “And Mary, I understand, may be considered as hav-
ing shown herself agreeable to the—the young man.” (Per-
haps he did not dare to say, to the engagement.) “You will
excuse me, Mr. Fitz Hugh, for babbling to you in this childish
style.- I beg your pardon sincerely for troubling you with an
affair so—so entirely unimportant to you. But, really, your
past kindness gives me a sort of excuse for taking up your
time—for boring you, in short, with our trivial secrets. You
have risked life and limb—in a measure—to save the life of
my daughter ; and that must be my apology for dragging you
as it were into the sympathies of my family. Apropos of
this subject, allow me to thank you again, most heartily, for
the good service you did us. But for you, sir,—hem—I
might not have had a daughter Mary at this moment. You
will always have a place in our memories, and a place at our
table sir.”

“Tt is of no consequence, Sir,” said I, as vaguely and help-
lessly as Mr. Toots himself.

“You, I hope, think well of Robert,—ha?” he continued,
without noticing the drift of my observation.

“ Quite so; oh, certainly,” I mumbled. “A very good
match; very good, indeed.”

“Tam glad you think so,” he replied cheerfully. “ Your
favorable opinion gives me a great deal of satisfaction. You
are a keen observer of character, I am aware ;—I noticed
that in your book, sir, with many other marks of talent ;—
and, in short, I am delighted that you estimate Robert so
highly. I confess, frankly, that it would have been difficult
for me to suit myself more thoroughly in choosing a guardian
for my daughter. As I was just observing to you, a poor
girl brought up rich needs a rich husband; and Robert has
abundance—two hundred thousand at least—not to speak of
windfalls in the future. All safe too; nota dollar at risk ;
244 SEACLIFF.

no fancy stocks and no kites up. You can’teimagine—not
being a father, sir—what a gratification it is to me to look
forward to putting my child’s happiness on such a stable
basis, especially in these times, when business is in such a
terrible state, and J, for one, hardly know which way to turn
to face my liabilities. Even if I did not admire Robert so
much for his truly worthy character, I think I should consent
to the match for the sake of his eminently solid prospects.”

“You are very right, sir,” said I; “you have shown ex-
cellent judgment.” I spoke up vigorously at last, for his
conversation had got to be annoying, and I was determined
to have done with it. Of what consequence to me now was
it whom she married and why she married him? “You
have made an admirable choice for Miss Westervelt ; or
rather, she has made an admirable choice for herself.” I was
a little bitter in tone here, for after all, I felt indignant at
the match. “I congratulate her, and Mr. Van Leer also.”

“Very good! very kind of you!” he exclaimed with a
look of real pleasure and gratitude. “I thank you sincerely,
sir. I hoped you would be—be pleased; and I am glad,
very glad, to hear you say so.”

“And now, if you will excuse me,” said I, withdrawing my
arm from his,—“I have some business to attend to which
will busy me during the entire day. I must bid you good
morning.”

“Not for the entire day!” he replied. “Oh no! You
promised, I understand, to go out fishing with us this after-
noon. You must dine with us. Come, I insist upon it—I
do indeed, my dear sir! my dear Mr. Fitz Hugh !!”

Perhaps he suspected or believed that his disclosure had
pained me deeply, and felt that he ought to heal my wounded
heart by pouring the balm of hospitality into my stomach.
I resisted his invitations vigorously, but I could only escape
the dinner by swallowing the excursion. Getting away from
him at last, I hurried down a walk and came plump upon
Mrs. Van Leer, who was ‘sitting in ambush on a bench in
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 245

one of the grape arbors, and who laughed at my grim bow,
while her black eyes lighted up with gay malice.

“Ah! and has papa given his consent?” she asked. “ Of
course he has, if dear Mary is willing. “Oh! you are quite
right to look serious over it. Matrimony is a solemn affair.”

“Nonsense!” I replied, bluntly, and almost ferociously.
“T have asked nobody’s consent, and I am not serious. Mat-
rimony may be a solemn affair, but that concerns you and
not me.” | /

“Oh! You relieve me immensely. I was beginning to be
horribly jealous.”

“JT should think your husband would be,” I retorted with
awkward viciousness, as J cleared the garden fence and ran
down the hill.

I heard her laugh in reply ; but out of sight, she was out
of mind. I reached home, stole unnoticed to my room, locked
the door, and paced up and down for I do not know how long
between the wall and the window. The wound in my heart
had done with its first bleeding, and already the inflamma-
tion born from it was kindling mind and body into fever. I
fretted and fumed in whispers, buried my hot head in my
hands, buried it in my pillow, flung myself at full length on
the floor, started up to recommence my wearisome march,
and then fell again to grovel like an idiot. I never suspected
before, and I would not have believed, that I could be trans-
ported to such excesses of angry unreason. There was, how-
ever, something characteristic in the paroxysm, for although
I have the name of being gay and good-natured in ordinary
social intercourse, yet am I disposed to become obstinate,
reckless, and, I am afraid, almost brutal, under provocation.

After a long while, exhausted with this mute raving, I sat
down and tried to think ; but at first every reflective power
seemed to have been drowned in that sea of wild blood which
had surged through my being. The only idea which I could
realize distinctly was that Miss Westervelt was now lost to
me utterly, and that it mattered little whether it were through
246 SEACLIFF.

the mysterious influence of Somerville or through the en-
gagement with Robert Van Leer. Meantime, what folly, what
wrong, did I accuse her of? Of no one thing distinctly, but
rather of a chaos of errors, which wearied me with their con-
tradictions and absurdities. It is the greatest shame of my
life, I think, that during that first hour of darkness, I suffered
myself to believe, though faintly and sorrowfully, that I had
proofs enough to affirm her guilty of some transgression, am-
biguous in nature, but certainly unworthy. It is not thus
hastily that we ought to judge the life result of one who
has borne unchallenged a spotless name. Robert Van Leer,
with his slow brain and steadfast heart, would not have been
that wavering, doubtful friend to Miss Westervelt that I
showed myself to be when the shadow of the Seacliff mystery
seemed to fall upon her.

But after that I drifted into a gentler current of feeling,
and caught sight of a shore to the horror, which bloomed
with some promise of innocence. Miss Westervelt was the
lady of the mystery ; and therefore the mystery could not be
a guilty one. Through the mist of suspicion, across the rush
and surge of passion, I stretched out my hands to this there-
fore, and held fast by it with such a struggle of faith as that
which saves a soul. I acknowledged that she was intimate
with a bad man; that she was under his influence, and per-
haps partly in his power; but what the secret of that influ-
ence was, I would not even try to guess. It cannot be! it
cannot be! it cannot be! I kept repeating to the hateful
suggestions which climbed to my ear in spite of me, whisper-
ing as the unbodied voices of fiends whispered to Christian
when he walked through the shadowy valley. Nevertheless,
I instantly added, it is better that she should be married to
Robert, and married soon, because it will tend to save her
from any net of devilish entanglement which may have been
laid for her ruin.

Presently I had a summons to dinner. Like all the plain
country people of New England, Ma and Pa Treat dined
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 247

at exactly twelve o’clock. Dinner in civilized society is
always more or less of a ceremony; and every social cere-
mony has, if not a calming, at least a repressive influence
upon emotion; so that, although I did not eat much and
talked in monosyllables, I rose from the table a more rational
creature than I sat down to it. -Thankful for this wiser
frame of spirit, I made the most of it by devising a style of
conduct and conversation which should govern my future
intercourse with Miss Westervelt. Perhaps one might learn
something good from even Lucifer; and certainly I profited
on this occasion by the manners of Somerville. No sullen-
ness, no hard looks, no innuendoes! I said; but rather, a
calmer brow, a gentler eye, a more polished speech than
usual ; a mask of impenetrable courtesy for all my suspicions
and grief and anger. Such would I be while I continued
near her ; and the trial would not be hard, because it would
not be long. But I could not take flight instantly, I added :
no, that would look too capricious and unaccountable, or it
might be interpreted to my disadvantage and to that of
others ; it might lead to whispers that I had been rejected,
that I had taken offence at trifles, &c. Oh, yes, I found
plenty of good reasons for not quitting the neighborhood of
Seacliff immediately.

Notwithstanding my sage reflections and resolutions, I felt
when I set out for the Westervelt house that my composure
tottered. Usually I ran up the little hill with ease; but now
it took away my breath, although I walked as slowly as to
a funeral; and at the summit I actually muttered a few
meaningless words to myself, merely to see if my voice re-
mained to me. It was a relief as I entered the veranda to
hear loud conversation within, for I felt that I could confront
half a dozen easier than one. And yet I was not a criminal ;
the secret that shook me was another’s. I suffered because I
was a human being; a dog in my place would have been
happy enough.

They were all ready, and waiting for me. Henry Van
248 '. SEACLIFF.

Leer, an unlighted cigar in his mouth, was gesturing vio-
lently with his broad-brimmed hat as he harangued concern-
ing the necessity of strict discipline, quiet and silence while
on the fishing-grounds. “TI tell you I can’t have so much
chattering and trotting about, and fussing: at the lines as we
had before, and I won’t have it, and so all you women take
notice and keep quiet, and let the lines alone.”

“Oh, stop your noise, Hen—ry!” retorted his wife. “TI
can’t hear myself talk. You needn’t hector'us, if you do
speak bass. You don’t suppose we are going to lose our fun
mere—ly to eatch a few ugly sharks, do you ?”

“Why, that’s the fun,” shouted Henry. “Why, good
Lord! you don’t know what you're talking about!”

“Dear me, what a roar, Henry! I think you had better
take the first shark’s skin and polish down your voice. They
say it’s better than sand-paper.”

“Keep a stiff upper lip, Jule,” he replied, nodding with
a good-humored grin, his usual demeanor under her rep-
artees.

Meanwhile I stood on one side, glad that no one addressed
me. I tried to control my eyes, but the traitors wandered to
and fro until they encountered the eyes of Miss Westervelt.
She too, it seemed to me, was endeavoring to withhold or
withdraw a look of timid inquiry, and to suppress an expres-
sion of kind yet pained surprise, which made her face almost
reproachful. Her gaze dropped instantly before mine, then
rose with a start to the heavy visage of Robert Van Leer,
and then turned-in assumed vacancy to an open window.
Her father has told her all, and perhaps more than all, I said
to myself; he has told her that I am willing to see her mar-
ried to another. In my turn I looked at Robert, wondering
whether he had finally triumphed in his suit, and dreading
to see the happy pride of an ‘accepted lover emblazoned on
his oaken countenance. Considering how completely I had
given up Miss Westervelt, my relief at discovering no such
expression in him was somewhat absurd and uncharitable.
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 249

In a few minutes we were on board the little yacht Falcon.
She was a centre-board sloop of thirty tons burden, broad
in the beam, with a long and sharp run forward, a short one
aft, a wide stern, a very flat floor, and a draught of about
three feet at the rudder. Her hull was perfectly white, with
the exception of a narrow black streak just below the bul-
warks, Her spread of canvas was prodigious for her ton-
nage, and with a light breeze she made twelve knots an
hour. Rough water knocked her about like an egg-shell;
but she was just the thing for skimming Long Island Sound.

In those days I had a fancy for a yacht, just proportioned
to my inability to keep one. The elastic stride of a fine horse-
is not more exhilarating to me than the breezy bound and
foaming dip of a fast little vessel, flying, now seaward, now
landward, under a wind fragrant with freshness from the cool
meadows of ocean. I often spent an idle day (one of those
days when the brain declines to go into harness) in modelling
a miniature clipper for some of my youthful acquaintance,
and in watching its nautical triumphs over rival toys on some
rippling ocean, which, in my commonplace moments, I called
a pond or puddle. Those hours of play were as full of
pleasure and poetry as those other hours when I was building
a fairy tale or launching a ballad.

This afternoon not even the reality of yachting could
divert me. The excursion was the more painful because I
had expected to find a few moments of rich and strange hap-
piness in it, and felt now that those moments might never be.
I had meant to be near Miss Westervelt, to support her steps
across the wavering deck, to feel her weight resting on me,
no burden, and to whisper, perhaps, in her ear some of those
words that men rarely utter for the first time but in whispers.
Now I could only murmur to myself that saddest of sad
lines, “ It might have been.”

Spreading her canvas, the light bark skated like a water
insect over the ripples of the cove, and dashed out among

the wavelets of the Sound. The helm was in the hand
11*
250 SEACLIFF.

of Pa Treat, who usually piloted in case of a family excur-
sion. Miss Westervelt sat behind him alone, leaning over
the low taffrail, and apparently lost in watching the foam
whirls which spun out rapidly astern, unwinding themselves
to naught across the hazy green water. The two Van Leer
men lounged amidships, overhauling the lines occasionally,
and speculating on our fishing prospects with a solemn ear-
nestness which seemed to me, of course, contemptibly mis-
placed and ridiculous. Somerville lounged against the star-
board bulwark, talking to Mrs. Westervelt and Mrs. Van
Leer. Mr. Westervelt took short turns up and down the
tiny quarter-deck with Genevieve, and seemed to be remon-
strating timidly against some outbreak of her characteristic
pettishness, while the girl continued to make quick replies,
shake her head strenuously, and fling angry glances in the
direction of the group at thestarboard bulwark. All at once
it struck me, not perhaps for the first time, but now first with
distinctness and vividness, that this ill-humor, this feminine
savageness, which I had long seen and disliked in her, had
for its object, not Mrs. Westervelt, but Somerville. The hiss
and ripple of waters prevented me from catching what she
said; but several times I saw her lips formed as if to syllable
his name. Had I at last hit upon the true secret of her
petulance? Was it that she hated Somerville, and hated him
for good cause? I watched her with great interest now, as
she fumed away after her defiant fashion, while her father
tried in vain to hush her, patting her hand with his, and look-
ing over his cringing shoulders at every turn.

“ Come, Mr. Fitz Hugh, you must be my pirate-—my par-
ticular buccaneer,” said Cousin Jule, leaving her party, and
coming to take my arm. Obeying her impulsion, I led her
forward to the forecastle, where we leaned over the bulwark
and watched the sharp prow drive through the faintly cream-
ing waters. She commenced her usual coquetries; asking me
how I would like to be a corsair, and carry off women ; whether
I would pick out rich victims, or consult taste merely, and se-
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 251

lect handsome ones; whether I would think her worth a battle
and a voyage to the Isle of Pines; declaring that she should
perfectly delight in such an adventure, and so.on. But
something presently occurred which made romance shrink
away and hide itself. As we passed the point, and the breeze
freshened, her chatter suddenly ceased, and she became so
significantly white about the mouth, that I offered my arm
and took her aft, without waiting for explanations. She
did not speak to me as she tottered along, but called out in a
most deplorable whimper, “ Hen—ry! Hen—ry!” It was
just: like her ; whenever she was in trouble she ran to her
husband ; when the trouble vanished, she was ready to trifle
with the first male coquette that happened along.

“ Why, what’s the matter, Jule?” returned Henry. “Sick?
Good Lord, no! Don’t give it up so. Keep a stiff upper
lip, Jule.”

“Oh, Hen—ry! Hen—ry!” moaned Jule. “Oh! I’m
going to be so sick. Do lay me down somewhere. Do throw
me overboard. Oh! I wish the yacht was sunk.”

He carried her to the quarter-deck, spread a plaid for her,
covered her feet with his own coat, and then hurried off to
mix a glass of brandy and water, which he asserted would
help her to keep a stiff upper lip. Recumbent, quiescent, but
not patient, Mrs. Van Leer endured the remainder of the
excursion.

As for me, I enjoyed it as much perhaps as did the sharks
that we took ashore. I had indeed this pleasure which they
had not, that I could torment something, and thus feel that I
was imperfectly revenging on nature, after a roundabout,
senseless fashion, the pain which I myself suffered. In gen-
eral I despise fishing ; but this afternoon I fished persever-
ingly, strenuously ; partly for the blind zest of destruction,
and partly to escape reflection. Two or three times I had to
bait Miss Westervelt’s hook, and to heave or to haul in her line
for her. She always thanked me for these little services, and
Ialways bowed smilingly in reply ; but there was a feeling
252 ‘SEACLIFF.

of alienation, of unutterable remoteness, between us, which
would not permit of conversation. Her usual frank cordiali-_
ty of manner was gone, and her voice, though still sweet, was
repressed and monotoned. I have sometimes had a dream
which was like the suffering of that afternoon. IJ, have
seemed to be standing on one side of a narrow but bottomless
cleft, holding the hand of a dear friend who stood on the op-
posite brink, each of us trying to draw closer to the other,
while the chasm steadily widened between us, overcoming our
struggles, tearing us apart, and. then sweeping us away and.
away on either hand until we could see each other no more,
hear each other’s cries no more forever. /
Then too, while this woful disjunction increased momently.
until even love and hope could not span it, it was an addi-
tional pain to behold Somerville smiling and talking by her
side, in the place which I had lost. He never appeared to me
more graceful, more fascinating, than he did this day when-
ever he approached Miss Westervelt. Out of the depths of
my own turmoil and discord, I felt that his manner was all
delicacy and his words all music; and yet I believed that
he was wicked, that he was pitiless, that he was without hon-
or, that his pulse was even then beating with villainous
passions. He seemed to me like some beautiful wild beast
which had taught itself to repress for a time all expression of
its native savageness, in order that it might do the greater
harm. They say that a leopard will steal into an encamp-
ment by night with such a noiseless tread, that not a sleeper
is disturbed, and even waking-men do not hear the mur-
derous footstep as it creeps behind them through the shadows.
In the morning the prints of the claws are found, or some
one lies stark and dead, his throat torn open and his life-
blood sucked away. This is all; no one overheard the:
agony; no one knows when it happened. And all the while
that the animal was accomplishing his deed of carnage, his
motions were exquisitely graceful, his spotted hide glossy
with health, and his-whole. being an incarnation of physical
beauty. Such is Somerville, I thought, in our little circle:
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. 253

no foot is so silken as his, no port so elegant, no manner less
alarming ; and yet he is draining the life from a soul.

Coming back from the fishing-grounds, the conversation
was general and lively, as is usually the case among people
excited by exercise and adventure. Even Mrs. Westervelt

-lost that languor and seeming of melancholy which often
marked her, and chattered gayly, or rather hoydenishly,. as
was her wont when she did chatter.

“Well, this ¢s fun,” said she. “Who would think that
these ugly, dirty fish could amuse one so! Why, it’s like
catching beaux; it’s almost as good as flirting, isn’t it, Jule ?
Oh, Jule! Jule! you and I have done a great deal of that, I
am afraid. If our husbands knew the whole, Jule, what
would they say to us?”

“Say? why, just what they did say, that they are our de-
voted admirers and slaves,” replies Mrs. Van Leer, who was
in smooth water again.

“ Only hear how saucy she is, my dear!” continues Mrs.
Westervelt. “Do you agree to what she says? But I did
catch you, my dear, didn’t 1? Hahaha. It’s a pity that a
woman can’t marry all her adorers. How many weddings
should we have had between us, Jule, in that case? I will
count up my list, if you will count up yours. No, no, on
second thoughts I won’t do it; it might make Mr. Westervelt
unhappy. Would it, dear? Hahaha. No, I am not going
to think of those gay days any more. I am a married
woman now, and live in the country, and don’t go to a party
above once a year. But why can’t we have a little dance to-
night? What do you say, you bachelors? ‘Come, Robert
and Mr. Fitz Hugh, wouldn’t you like a dance, now, really ?”

“First rate!” roars Bob. “I havn’t danced, it seems to
me, for this seven hundred al I say, Fitz Hugh, can’t
you shake a foot ?”

“Happy to be present, but rarely dance,” I muttered,
totally disgusted with the proposition. All gayety and mirth
in this family, now, seemed to -me like laughter by the side
of an open grave.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD.

VERY day for a week I resolved that on the morrow

ic I would leave Seacliff. -But the morrow, that is,

the morrow of action, is.a-timid, forbearing circum-

stance, extremely unwilling to force itself upon humanity,

and rarely coming to those who do not seek it... It is not thus

with the morrows of suffering; if it were, how often would
the sun stand still on Gibeon !

In the mean time I kept up my habit of calling daily on
the Westervelts, telling myself that I ought not certainly to
break off the intercourse while staying in the neighborhood,
for fear of occasioning painful explanations or impertinent
gossip. It isa charming circumstance in human nature that
a man can always find reasons for doing what he wishes to do.

I tried to talk with Miss Westervelt as with an indifferent
person; but I found that to me that form and face could
nevermore be indifferent; and since our conversations must
no longer be free and sympathetic, they became drearily cold
and embarrassed. Neither might demand, neither might
utter a word such as could melt away the long fields of ice
which had drifted between us. How often does it happen
that two hearts, which would gladly approach and befriend
each other, are separated, like Arctic discoverers, by frozen
wastes, across which they can see but indistinctly, and pass
never! One thing made me feel, not only unhappy, but
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 255

wicked. Somerville now talked a great deal to Miss Wes-
tervelt, in his most insinuating manner, and she received him, °
as it seemed to my jealousy, with something of that friendly
familiarity which had once been accorded to me. Perhaps
it is to punish my coldness, I thought, when I was most
charitable and hopeful; but at other times I raved silently
about the levity of the sex, and the easy admiration which it
grants to rakes.. I would not admit, indeed, that Miss Wes-
tervelt had become in any manner the victim of Somerville ;—
I only said to myself that she was one with him in the bonds
of some inexplicable mystery, and therefore must always be
divided from me.

Wretched amid the society around me, yet incapable of
leaving it, I tried to revive my literary ambition, and planned ,
a new book. Previous to my arrival at Seacliff, and while
Miss Westervelt was no more to me, or not much more, than,
any other handsome girl, successful authorship had seemed
to me the most precious reward offered to human exertion.
There was one wish which had gone up from me oftener than
any other; oftener than a desire for health, beauty, riches,
or any of those things that men usually covet. It comes to
me still at times, vestured with superhuman attractions, and
dowered with impossible glories. It is the longing to be full
young once more, and yet possess all the power and energy
of maturity. If that dream could be granted me, then would
I waste no time in pleasure, none in idleness, none, as now,
in despair, but, gathering all my intellectual and emotional
nature into one effort, I would produce a work in literature
that should make me famous at once, before another year
signed me, and while I still barely stood on the threshold of
manhood. To be distinguished young is a godlike lot which
falls to few, and may well be envied, if only for its rarity ;
to be courted, admired, adored young, is a bribe glorious
enough to pay for an early death. I confess that this result-
less longing of mine, this cheating instinct of hope, has often
risen to a passion of wayward desire, which, before any great
256 SEACLIFF.

moral tribunal, would condemn me terribly. What should a
Christian preacher say of a man who would rather be Byron
the young than “such an one as Paul the aged?” And yet,
I have been that man. Sometimes it has seemed to me that
the only completely successful being on earth is a belle of
eighteen ; a creature still possessing store of beauty and youth
and hope, whose social triumph is already perfected; the
past darkened to her by few sorrows, few disappointments
and no remorse; the present a throne on which she sits
superbly, surrounded by her captives ; the future a fairy land,
from which Time has not yet stripped one rich illusion.
Rarely are we men so fortunate ;. seldom does our tree of life
bear fruits and flowers commingled; our heads have begun
to whiten long before the world advances to crown them. I
think that men can feel much more deeply than women the
broad wisdom and the blessed sympathy which breathes from
that phrase of Hawthorne’s, “ The tranquil gloom of a dis-
appointed soul!”

I made the skeleton of a novel ina single morning. It
was a skeleton, indeed; a thing to frighten women and
children ; one of the ghastliest, wofullest dramas conceivable.
The first three chapters were finished with a rapidity and
ease which would have done credit to Alexander Dumas &
Co., or to those inexhaustible human fountains whose romances
stream through the New York Ledger. I had a powerful
incentive to write, aside from artistic sentiment and the de-
sire of distinction. The Westervelts had despised me and cast
me off, I said; and I was determined to make them respect
me and' regret me. On the fourth day, full of love, hatred,
revenge, and ambition, I plunged into the fourth chapter with
such spirit that I got over my head in less than an hour, and
had to stop for another inspiration. A day passed, and then
another, and there I was still, and there Iam. I could not,
by any ingenuity or perseverance, breathe the breath of life
into that infamous skeleton so as to make it advance a single
step further. It was a painful termination to literary effort,
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 257

certainly, and yet, I beg that the world will not waste too
much pity upon me. It was only “one more unfortunate.”
The multitude of novels which have died in different stages
of their manuscript existence, is, perhaps, not easily con-
ceivable to the unromancing soul.

Rising one morning from that endless fourth chapter, I
walked up to Seacliff, to repose my mind with a little cheerful
conversation, as I cheatingly told myself. I found Bob Van
Leer, the picture of moody ennui, swinging on the garden
gate, which cracked and creaked despairingly under his pon-
derous carnality. At sight of me he put foot to earth again,
yawned, stretched, and fell back against a post with his
hands in his pockets.

“ Hullo, Fitz Hugh! Glad to see you. It’s a confounded
dull morning. I’ve smoked, and I’ve whittled, and I’ve
whistled, and finally Pve swung on a gate, just as I used to
when I was a boy.”

“Why don’t you talk to the ladies,—or rather to your
lady?” said I. “Shame on you! a man who is courting and
as good as engaged, and yet finds his time a burden!”

“Tt an’t that, Fitz Hugh. Ido talk te her allI can. But
then Somerville comes in, and has a way of shoving a feller
aside so. Blast him! I wish sometimes he’d clear out, for
good. He’s a right nice amusing feller in his place; but I
don’t want him to be playing his hook about my shark, you
see.”

It was certainly a harsh figure of speech to call Miss Wes-
tervelt a shark ; but the comparison was Bob’s poetical best,
and I did not worry him by laughing at it.

“T should say it was high time for you to be jealous,” I
remarked. “Somerville is a fascinating man ;—that is, in
the opinion of some people.”

A spark of comprehension kindled in his opaque brain,
and flashed out through his eyes a look of alarm.

“What's that, Fitz Hugh? You don’t mean to say he’s
courting her! Oh, Lord! she wouldn’t have him; would
she, Fitz Hugh?”
258 SEACLIFF,

_ “Who knows? Women and weather are very uncertain.”
“Qh, no! she wouldn’t think of such a thing, old feller.
She an’t that sort of a girl, to run after a gay chap because
he can talk French and soft sodder. Why, he hasn’t any
tin, I tell you, and couldn’t support her a week. I know
all about Somerville.. His father cut him off ten years ago.
‘He’s awfully in debt, and borrows of everybody. Tl tell
you, as a secret, that I’ve lent him three or four hundred
dollars myself this summer. I don’t expect to see it again,
and I didn’t when I handed it over; but if I find out that
he’s really’ courting her, I'll be hanged if I don’t dun him
right before the whole of them. But he wouldn’t be such a
confounded scoundrel as to spend my money and cut me out,
too!—eh, would he ?”

“ Better men have done worse: things, under temptation.
Besides, he might repay you with her money, and so settle
that. account honorably.”

“You don’t say so, Fitz Hugh!” replied Bob, more and
more uneasy. “Come, let’s go into the parlor. He’s there
now, talking to her. I say, I cught to keep an eye on them,
don’t you think so. ,Oh, thunder and lightning! I thought I
was all safe, and now—why, the old man has had another
talk with me, and told me it was all right, and I might go in
and win;—those wan’t his words, you know, but that’s the
sense of them;—and now to think that this beggar, who
hasn’t a solitary red, should want to put in. and spoil my
sport,—oh, by Jove, it’s too confounded bad !”

The last half dozen words were spoken in a whisper, as
our shadows strode before us into the parlor. No one was
in the room but. Miss Westervelt and Somerville, engaged in
an earnest conversation, apparently, but not sitting on the
same sofa, as, with the absurd suspiciousness of a.jealous
man, I had feared that I should find them. She met my
gaze so innocently, she made my own name sound so sweet to
me by her utterance of it, she seemed to invite me with such
a gentleness, beyond words, to demand her friendship once
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 259

more, that for a moment I had the desire to bend soul and
knee to her. I could not talk, however, beyond repeating
her “good-morning,” and stammering some purposeless re-
mark concerning no matter what, perhaps the weather. There
were thoughts in me which would not let themselves be spoken,
nor anything else that was worth speaking. One of those
awkward pauses ensued which often occur when a féte-a-téte
has ‘been broken up by an intrusion ; and in the midst of it
I turned abruptly away to a centre-table, and commenced
thumbing a portfolio of photographs. When I glanced at
Miss Westervelt again her face was a little flushed, and she
was bending close over her sewing. Bob stood bolt upright
in the middle of the room, his hands thrust sternly into his
breeches pockets, and his eyes fixed on Somerville’s impas-
sible face, with a ludicrous air of trying to discern the secret
purposes which revolved within, as far away from the poor
observer’s ken, and as undecipherable by him, as the motions
-of the unknown stars.

“You will find the photographs worth your inspection, Mr.
Fitz Hugh ; especially if you have read (as I suppose you
have) the Stones of Venice,” observed Somerville.

I bowed to him, but I had neither words nor wish to reply.
It was now several days since I had become distant and taci-
turn toward this man, hating him more and more bitterly
every hour, although as yet no hour had come when I could
decently express my bitterness. Robert soon gave over his
physiognomical observations, completely dazed by that pol-
ished marble countenance and demeanor. Drawing a sigh
and a chair, he seated himself by me, put his elbows on the
table, put his face in his hands, and stared at the Venetian
palaces, bottom upward, with an air of implacable aversion.
From time to time he raised his eyes, as stealthily as such
big slow optics could rise, to get another look at his lady-love
and her companion. As for me, I would not play the spy,
and so sat with my back magnanimously turned ; but I could
not avoid overhearing nearly every word of their conversation.
260 SEACLIFF.

“Apropos of Venice-—Shakspeare!” observed Somerville.
“T believe that you adore Shakspeare.”

“Tt is not womanly, perhaps,” she said; “ but I do.”

“Not womanly! But henceforward it is womanly,” he
replied in a tone so flattering, that it seemed to make Miss
Westervelt at once the great exemplar and leader of her sex.
“Indeed, women, gifted as they are with a high degree of
artistic sensibility, ought to be the first in discovering real
genius and the most devout: in worshipping it. I suppose it
is their charity alone eet makes them encourage so many
little authors.”

Here I felt myself hit, and sited the photographs very
gently.

“T do positively believe,” he ope “that we should
be far better off if we could get rid of the numberless insig-
nificant books which now dissipate our time and brains, and
confine ourselves to the study of some few master minds. I
should like to select for the world’s reading, Homer, Plato,
Dante, Bacon, Shakspeare, and Milton; and first, before
these even, I would of course place the Bible.”

I could hardly help laughing outright and angrily to hear
him name the Bible among his literary favorites.

“Oh! I beg pardon; I came near committing a great in-
justice. I absolutely forgot for a moment that Mr. Fitz Hugh
was in print,” he added in such a very pleasant tone that the
words really did not sound much like irony. “ Allow me to
subjoin the Jdler in Italy to my list of master pieces, Mr.
Fitz Hugh, am I to have your thanks?”

“ Grateful of course for being put once and forever along-
side of Shakspeare and the rest of them,” said I, over my
shoulder. “ But I decidedly disapprove your plan of exter-
minating the little authors. It would be just as reasonable
to destroy all the machinery in the world except the steam-
engine, the hydraulic ram, and one or two other apparatus
of immense power. Suppose a gentleman had a couple of
hydraulic-rams in his dining-room,—I think he would still
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 261

miss his nut-crackers. Besides, how many minds have just
calibre enough to take in a small author or two, and no
more. Depend upon it, that the masses would not learn to
read, if all reading were forbidden except works of the high-
est genius.”

“That's so,” confirmed Bob. “If I couldn’t get hold of
anything more interesting than old Milton and Shakspeare,
I wouldn’t read a page, year in and year out.”

“Ah, Robert! for your sake I would spare the Pirate’s
Own Book,” smiled Somerville. .

“I read as much’as you do,” asseverated Bob, loudly and
angrily.

Up to this time the poor fellow had always bowed his head
meekly before Somerville’s bland irony, and had seemed anx-
ious to improve by it in some blundering fashion, rather than
to justify himself or to retort bitterly. It was jealousy which
soured him now, and made him seek occasion of quarrel.

“ Bah! ne nous fachons pas. My opinions are not worth
a discussion,” observed Somerville tranquilly, and without
even a stare of surprise at this revolt of one of his subjects.

“Oh! you get off by talking French,” muttered Bob,
smothering his indignation, and turning to the photographs
with an asphyxiated countenance. For the moment he was,
I suspect, angry even with Miss Westervelt, because she had
heard him satirized without rushing to his rescue.

“T say, Fitz Hugh,” he growled, “I wish we was in Venice
together. I’d just buy one of these palaces and have a gon-
dola, and stay there all my life. I’m dead tired of America,—
hanged if I.an’t!” - “

He glanced at Mary, as if to see how she bore the implied
threat, and, discovering probably, no conspicuous alarm in
her face, rose sullenly from the table and stalked out of
the house. I followed as if to speak to him, but he had van-
ished, and so I stood in the hall, hesitating.

“Robert is horribly jealous of me,” I heard Somerville

say.
262 SEACLIFF.

She made no answer in words, but she must have made
one in look. Was the glance kindly, or reproving? I would
have given all the worlds I possessed to know.

“ And so is our other friend, the Httérateur,”. he added.

“ Hush !”

“ They might well be, if they knew my thoughts.” (No.
answer.) “No occasion for it, I fear, if they know yours.” -

“Nobody knows my thoughts,” she said. “I have no
thoughts on such subjects.”

“So much the worse for me! But, really, what you say
there is quite cruel. You have no thoughts on such sub-
jects? You never think how to make men happy? I declare
that no woman has a right to bury her talent for causing hap-
piness. Be it beauty, or intelligence, or a noble heart, or all
those things together, she is morally bound to use it.”

I started to find that I was eavesdropping, and escaped out
of doors noiselessly. This is a specimen of the visits that I
now made in that house which had once, and not long ago,
been to me the House Beautiful. I entered it gloomy, and left
it miserable, without a single tatter of happiness, or even of
hope, to wrap around my poverty-stricken spirit. Somerville
had but to sit down by Miss Westervelt, to pay her a few
compliments, to address her in a low tone, and in a moment
or two I fled away, as easily, naturally, and to all appear-
ance, as unobservedly, as any random mote of dust might
drift out of a window. I wish the reader to conceive clearly
how forlorn I was when I quitted Seacliff this morning, how
chafed and hopeless, how full of romance, fictitious and real,
in order that he may judge with some leniency the part which
I played in another scene immediately after.

From the edge of the bluff I discovered Mrs. Van Leer
on the beach below, conchologizing with the usual ostentation
of spotless hosiery. She was strolling westward along the
shore, and by the time I overtook her was within twenty rods |
of the lonely wooded point which I have mentioned as The
Cedars.
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 263

“Ah!” said she, affecting to start. “ How slyly you come
upon people! One would think you had bad intentions.”

“ The worst in the world,” I replied, “My object is to flirt -
with a married lady.”

“Oh! what a hor—rible idea!” she laughed. “Do let me
dis—suade you. But first who is the poor doomed creature ?
Is it Mrs. Treat?”

“Fairer game than that. But never mind now who
she is. I will tell you by and by, when we get to the
Cedars.”

“Qh, but I am not going to the Cedars. That would
nev—er do. Do you suppose that I would trust myself
to the fascinations of such a woman——killer as you ?”

Talking, picking up shells, skipping pebbles along the still
water, we strolled onward, and in about ten minutes reached
the bare sandy neck of the point. There was a moment’s
halt on the miniature ridge, to look at the long curves of
beach running either way, to jest, to laugh, to simper; and
then, with a hypocritical air of unconsciousness, as if we did
not know that we were advancing, we loitered down the hil-
lock to a lonelier strand. The Treat house and Seacliff were
both hidden now, and not a dwelling was visible along the
western coast nearer than half a mile. To the left of us a
faintly-marked footpath edged the shore of the point, diverg-
ing after a space into the thickest of the underwood, and
coming out, as I knew, upon a small plateau, half bare rock
and half meagre turf, which formed the southern close of the
lilliputian promontory.

“What a beau—tiful site for a summer-house the Cedars
would be!” said Mrs, Van Leer, at gaze. “I sometimes
think it would be prettier even than Seacliff. I have talked
to Henry about setting up a cot—tage on it.”

“ Suppose we go and pick out a building spot,” I sug-
gested.. /

Without another word, we walked down the path and
entered the close grove of stunted, rusty wind-twisted ever-
264 SEACLIFF.

greens. The low, stiff, horizontal branches projected across
the narrow footway at every yard, and I frequently had to
draw them aside to give passage to Mrs. Van Leer’s volumi-
nous drapery, which caught and tangled and tore in a fretting
manner. We had both become distressingly silent, but
glanced, every other moment, at each other’s faces. Once
or twice, when I caught her eyes returning over and over
again to mine in the course of a few seconds, she laughed
gayly, but with a tremulous twitter of embarrassment, while
a red spot gradually deepened in the centre of her cheek.
Silent still, silent as burglars stealing through midnight, we
reached the plateau and entered a rocky lap or indentation
in its extreme edge. ' Seacliff was invisible, and every other
house ; so was the long line of beach even, except a low cape
far to the eastward ; nothing earthly faced us but the ripples
of the Sound, vessels passing miles away, and, beyond them,
the yellow shore of Long Island. Mrs. Van Leer’s face was
quite flushed, and her hand trembled, as I aided her to de-
scend a smooth plate of granite into this sequestered hollow.
Then, instead of seating herself on a broad shelf of rock, or
lounging on a bank of dry turf, as I expected to see her do,
she took possession of a stone isolated from every other and
disposed her dress about her with nun-like modesty. Was
she getting frightened at the compromising position in which
she had deliberately placed herself? I guessed so, and felt
half indignant at the changeable creature, at once reckless
and skittish; for her air of guileful caution was so conspicu-
ous and so evidently put on against me, that it seemed an
imputation. Feeling a little insulted, I walked to a ledge of
rock some fifteen feet distant from her, seated myself, and fell
to staring at the white-winged coasters which were passing
each other eastward and westward. My reserve either re-
assured her or piqued her, for she presently commenced con-
versation. ‘

“ Beau—tiful! Don’t you think it is a pretty site for a
house, Mr. Fitz Hugh?”
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 265

“Yes; but it is prettier without a house. It would be a pity
to spoil such a picturesque lounging-place by crowding it with
walls, fences, and garden-walks. If I owned Seacliff, I would
buy this point and keep it just as it is. It is a spot to visit,
and not to live in.”

“T think so too,” she replied; and then followed another
‘silence.

I stood looking out to sea, vacant of purpose, irresolute,
tossing, drifting, like the wavelets which flowed and beat each
other, and broke and rose again in random unrest before my
eyes. Suddenly, I do not know whence, a wind of ridicule
blew upon me, giving my thoughts a new impulse and setting
them, full sea, toward a shore of jest and laughter. It would
be a wonderful joke, it seemed to me in that absurd instant,
to scare this silly woman. It would set her down and serve
her right and teach her better. .

“ But,—Mrs. Van Leer,” I said, rising and walking delib-
erately up to her, “I promised to tell you what lady I meant
to flirt with.”

She laughed faintly and gave me a quick nervous glance
of apprehension, but did not speak.

“Of course,” I went on, “it must be somebody whom I can
sit near and talk to in whispers.”

As I said this, I bent over her, and, taking her hand, held
it firmly, notwithstanding a weak effort which she made to
withdraw it. It was the only time in my life that I had ever
addressed a woman so insolently ; and I was astonished to see
how this poor trifler quailed before my audacity ; how ter-
rified she was, and yet how helplessly fascinated.

“Oh! don’t, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” she gasped, rising hastily,
but not retreating. “I beg of you! I was only jesting. Oh!
I ought not to have come here. Oh! please let us go back.”

There was no menace in her manner, no defiance, no re-
sistance even; nothing but an air of supplication, as if I had
a right to command and .be obeyed. Thank Heaven! I had

at least enough manliness in me to be ashamed of my coarse
12 :
266 SEACLIEF.

jest the moment I saw her alarm; and it was partly to re-
assure her that I burst into a laugh as I dropped her hand
and stepped a pace backwards.

“What are you laughing at?” she said, taking courage a
little. “Oh, but why did you speak to me that way? Let
us go back, Mr. Fitz Hugh, if you please.”

“T didn’t know that you were such a coward,” I replied:
with a feeling more akin to contempt than repentance. She
was like those feeble spirits, I thought, whom Dante saw just
within the gate of the Inferno, who were neither good nor
evil, and of whom his guide said scornfully, Let us speak no
more of them, but look and pass on. “You are as timid as
a baby erying because it is spoken to by a stranger,” I con-
tinued. “ Well, let us go back, then. You don’t care to hear
about the flirtation?” .

“Not here. It isn’t a proper place to talk about such
things,” she said with a simplicity which made me smile in
her face. “And you know it, too,” she added, picking up her
dignity a little. “Let me give you one piece of ad—vice, Mr.
Fitz Hugh. I have seen more of society than you have, by
a year or two; and I know what IJ am talking about. If
people want to flirt, they should do it at a party or a ball.
That is the proper place for it, sir.”

The theory was so characteristic of her, so novel, so ludi-
crous, that I could not possibly help another burst of laughter.
She seemed quite annoyed, as well as a trifle puzzled, at my
amusement, and walked off sulkily, refusing to speak except
to fret at the cedar branches for catching in her berage dress.
So after a while I apologized for laughing; then I thanked
her solemnly for her advice; and the silly creature was
satisfied.

When I was a boy, I used to amuse myself with running
down a pet bantam rooster, coddling him a little, and letting
him escape. While I was after him, he cackled with terror ;
while I held him under my arm, he was as quiet and pettable
as a dog; but the moment I dropped him on his legs, he ran
SAD HEART AND SILLY HEAD. 267

off to a safe distance and crowed defiantly and triumphantly.
Just so behaved the sprightly bantam lady whom I now gal-
lanted from the spot where I had scared her. The moment
that she got out of the woods, she cackled lustily over my
naughtiness and its utter discomfiture, flinging bravados,—
pzans,—of lively scorn at me because I had “ wanted to be
so saucy, but dared not.”

“Aha!” said she, “I know how to manage you fast gen-
tlemen. I have had some expe—rience with just such high
young fellows as you are. You thought you could throw dust
in my eyes; but you caught it back again hot and heavy.”

“Yes, yes; I allow it; I don’t deny it,” returned IJ, trying
to give as much politeness as possible to the smile which I
could not repress. “TI concede and testify that I have be-
haved like a fast man and been treated like a slow one.”

“Aha! aha! yes, indeed!” she chuckled. “And that’s the
way you'll always find yourself treated when you try your
impudence on me.”

“ Ympudence! Mrs. Van Leer!!” I remonstrated, with a
heart-broken look. “ Well, if it has come to that,—if you can
charge me seriously with that,—I may as well leave Seacliff
at once.”

“No, no, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” she replied hastily. “ Don’t
be annoyed; don’t be angry, now. Come, you didn’t take me
se—riously, did you? I really didn’t mean to hurt your feel-
ings. I meant fast, you know; and I don’t blame a gentleman
for being fast occea—sionally, provided he doesn’t carry it too
far.”

On the whole, my impertinence had evidently been quite a
treat to her, and she liked me all the better for having given
her such a delightful five minutes of excitement. Women
dote on emotions, because these appeal to the larger and more
vigorous part of their nature; and consequently they are par-
tial to such events, and such men foo, as produce in them
throbs and blushes and tremors. Why is it that so many
women are always to be found at a public execution? Not
268 SEACLIFF

because the mere raw spectacle of violent death is pleasing
to them; but because the thrill which it gives to the nerwes
is at once a fascination and a luxury.

When I parted from her at the gate of the Seacliff grounds,
she shook hands, and protested, with a ludicrous air of for-
giving innocence, that she was not angry with me. As for
me, ashamed of my conduct, remorseful for it and resolved
not to repeat it, why was it that I flirted with her the next
day and the day after, and so on for days together? Well,
there were various reasons for the folly, although no excuses.
In the first place I felt a vindictive satisfaction in it because
it seemed to avenge in some stupid, animal way, the wrongs
which my heart had suffered, and was suffering, from another
quarter. In the second place I had introduced Mrs. Van
Leer into my novel; had recreated her into a woman of
problematical virtue, but fascinating manners ; and had ended
by making the thought of her attractive to my fevered imag-
ination. Thus, from writing a bad romance, I fell to acting
a bad reality, which is certainly somewhat more contemptible.
Very often, indeed, I had a desire to tell the lady that she
was one fool and I another; but as the things that I really
said were quite contrary to those assertions, we grew daily
more intimate and ridiculous. Did ever any sane person but
me suspect himself of being an idiot ? That humiliating sup-
position often assaulted me in my latter teens, when I. first
began to feel awkward in the presence of women; and now
it pointed its mocking finger at me again as I grimaced and
chattered at the feet of Mrs. Van Leer. Why in the name
of common sense should I not charge myself with cretinism ?
I was neglected (I thought) by the Westervelts, courted by
the leaden Bob and feather-brained Cousin Jule, and knew
that I hourly uttered things which deserved to bring me either
to a whipping-post or to a shaved head and mustard-plasters.
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIX.

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

find existence tolerable here. There is a melancholy

pleasure in haunting the place where one’s hopes were
ruined; but this pleasure comes not until after the tragedy is
consummated and long since bygone. First, we are led away
from the spot by Our Lady of Tears, and then we are kept afar
from it for a weary time by Our Lady of Sighs, and at last
we come back to it holding the cold hand of Our Lady of
Darkness. The light of life was fresh in the heart when we
fled ; but when we return that heart is like an extinguished
lantern: it sheds no gleam through the darkness, and it cannot
be seen for the darkness. People behold us daily, and’ say
that they know us, but they have not even guessed that we
suffer, because our faces have long since ceased to be indi-
cators of the soul. Let a clock be stopped by any accident,
and for centuries after, if you do not disturb it, the hands will
point steadily to the moment of that catastrophe. It is never
quite thus with human beings, except in cases of lunacy.
The man’s heart beats no more; it has ceased loving, and so
has ceased living ; but exteriorly he is the same that he was
before ; the indexes of thought and action still move with de-
ceptive calmness. He walks among the graves of his own
hopes, but he cries not, neither cuts himself with stones. He
sits alone and keeps silence by the side of Our Lady of

ye will be easily imagined, I think, that I could not long
270 SEACLIFF.

Darkness, but'no one divines the cause of his solitude, and
no one can see his mighty companion. :

But I had not yet reached this woe. It was Our Ladyiof:
Tears who now called me, bidding me with a voice which- I
alone heard, to forsake all and follow her. Every day'she
said, you must leave this place ; and at last she ordained it so
that I could not disobey. So with a calm countenance, but
earnest, questioning eyes, I faced the being from whom I had
lioped never to part, and stammered some phrases of farewell
that passed in that instant from my memory. What one-of
all the miserable can remember the. exact words with. which
he bade adieu to hope and welcomed despair? It was as if
he had not uttered them, but as if they had been breathed
far above his will and beyond his hearing by the awful Mater
Lachrymarum.

It must not be supposed that ever tears dropped from my
eyelashes, nor that this repression of the signs of grief
proved that my yoke’ was light and my burden easy to be
borne. Many who weep not, many who smile, are in secret
led by Our Ladies of Sorrow. ‘The tears fell not outwardly,
consolingly upon my cheek, but inwardly, poisonously, upon
my heart, as I turned away from this spot- where I had been
so happy, and entered into a future which was already sere
and leafless and fruitless. For some time I was alone, even
amid multitudes. A great disappointment which no sympa-
thy can alleviate and which may not be spoken in words,
separates a man from his fellows and makes earth seem to
him uninhabited.—

Thus commenced the fourth chapter of my romance, and
thus it finished. As it will sometimes happen to an inexpe-
rienced chorister, I had pitched my tune so high that I could
not sing it through, and came to a dead stop over the first
affetuoso. ‘The plot of the story, so far as it had one, was the
mystery of Seacliff, such as I then supposed it to be, with the
consequences which J imagined would naturally flow from it.
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 271

I was to quit the spot and tramp restlessly about the world,
a groaning hysterical hero of the Childe Harold stamp, an
object of tearful pity to all the handsome girls on my route,
but savagely refusing to be comforted. After a lonesome
perambulation of eight or ten years, during which wealth
and power were to force themselves upon me, I was to
come back, like the Count of Monte Cristo, in search of
my friends and my enemies. Seacliff was to be a desolation,
and the family of Seacliff extinct. Johnny Treat, grown to
manhood, (rather precociously,) would meet me among the
charred ruins of the bluff, and, seated on a blackened corner-
stone, narrate the fates of the Westervelts. Mary was lying
in the graveyard, the broken-hearted though innocent victim
of Somerville’s cruelty. Mr. Westervelt had committed sui-
cide, after having been swindled of everything by his dis-
solute son-in-law, (Somerville,) and cast off by his adaman-
tine father. Mrs. Westervelt and Genevieve had perished
slowly of shirt-making and consumption.

After hearing the story I would rise, turn away from John
Treat, raise my moist optics to Heaven and take a, silent oath
of vengeance. Then the first thing would be to catch Wes-
tervelt senior in a perilous speculation, (Monte Cristo again,)
trip him up, empty his pockets to the uttermost farthing, and
send him to die in the almshouse, or perhaps force him to
stea] and so finish him off at Sing-sing. And now for Somer-
ville, the deep, the dark, the double dyed villain! I would

track him like a bloodhound ;—I would follow him over land

and over sea ;—I would bring him to bay in some remote lair.
There I would do his business in a duel fought with Colt’s
revolvers, altogether regardless of the fact that I am no duel-
list, and would not allow myself to be shot at with even a
single-barrelled pistol if I could help it. In the smoke of that
deadly discharge, in the blood of that sufficing vengeance, the
story would terminate.

I think that this is very much the sort of thing that a
young man would hit on in his first attempt at a novel. Per-
272 SEACLIFF.

haps the embryo Scott is not yet aware that true portraiture
of character,—just analysis of human nature,—is the gem
which lends practical value toa romance, gives it the power
of fact under the grace of fiction, and places it among those
kingly gifts that the world rejoices to receive. Even if he
knows this, he is no better off, for he has not had time to study
humanity, and, unless he is a genius, he cannot divine it.
Now, it is a humiliating truth that certainly not more than one
tenth of us even in America are geniuses. The young author,
no wonder of mind, but still possessed of talents, writes away
with a good heart at first; but after finishing two or three
chapters he becomes vaguely conscious that there is some
important element of immortality wanting to his work ; and
so, merely to save it from lethargy and early death, he dashes
into rapid movement, passionate situations, and a rhetoric
flavored with gunpowder. His own stores of these valuables
soon giving out, he plagiarizes in his desperation, stealing one
man’s hero, another man’s murder, and a third man’s simile.
His conscience is too uninstructed in the rights of literary
property to reprove him ; it is honorable, no doubt, but it has
not yet learned the beauty, nor in fact, the exact nature of
originality ; and thus he picks pockets right and left with as
honest a zeal as if he were clothing the naked and feeding
the hungry. The reader has observed what use I made of
De Quincey’s terrible Ladies of Sorrow. Now I scarcely
thought of De Quincey at all when I wrote that passage. I
scribbled away with a single-heartedness which was its own
reward, and with a heated fluency of imitation which I took
for the inspiration of genius. They were not De Quincey’s
Ladies of Sorrow ; they were my ladies, and I meant to be-
come famous by them. It only required a couple of foolscap
sheets, however, to prove that my supposed ownership was a
sham, and that I had no more prospect of making those re-
markable females mine than I had of marrying the Empress
of France or the Queen of Sheba. I had not evoked Levana
and her companions, and they would not obey me. They
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 273

dragged me high into the clouds, as Mr. Thurston was car-
ried up by his runaway balloon ; and when I could hold on
no longer, I dropped, and that was the end of me. Yes, the
novel,was bound to ruin from the moment that I seized the
skirts of the Ladies of Sorrow.

12 *

g xii @

\\
 

 

 

CHAPTER XX.

CAKES AND ALE.

OME happy, but ludicrous people are romantic all

4) their lives ; others, like myself for instance, are only
romantic when they are in love. Just now I was
uncommonly subject to my imagination, and might have been
led by it to almost any extremity, nice or naughty. I had
been reading that singular autobiography, that unparalleled
narrative of crime and criminals, the Memoirs of Vidocq, the
famous agent of the French secret police; and the artful
dodges by which he detected and entrapped villains, the
bloodhound scent, by which he followed them even into the
caverns of their purposes, had strongly excited my fancy. It
occurred to me that I would be a Vidocq to Somerville, and
-beguile that pickpocket of reputations into some predicament
where his rascality would become palpable, or he would him-
self confess it. My starting conception was to play the
eavesdropper ; but in the first place this was a disagreeably
nasty character to assume, even for good ends; and in the
second I had already watched him, half unconsciously, for a
month or more without any practical result. I had heard
compromising things from him, indeed, but others had not
heard them with me, and so they were not evidence. At
last, after having sifted my brains to the bottom, and given
myself more worry than it would have cost Vidocq to cir-
cumvent a galley-load of ruffians, I devised a dirty sort of
pit, by no means bottomless, into which I hoped to entice my
CAKES AND ALE. 275

great adversary. I am almost ashamed to say a word more
about this my masterpiece of subtlety. It was nothing but the
simple, clumsy, vulgar idea of getting Somerville drunk, and
then trying to make him babble. I know that I shall obtain
no mercy from my total-abstinence reader, and I am not so
uninformed of the nature of my transgression as to plead
with him for any; but to all less virtuous persons I stretch
out deprecating hands, imploring them to remember how
young I was, and what a villain this man was, and what
he had made me suffer, as well as others who were dear
to me.

My plot once formed, I became very polite to Somerville
in order to disarm his suspicions. An opponent is always
beaten the easiest when you bring his own favorite weapon
to bear upon him; if you can out-compliment a flatterer, or
out-bluster a bully, you gain a seeming of advantage, which
wins you the game in the first flush of your adversary’s per-
plexity. It will be observed that Shakspeare has plagiarized
this idea from me and embodied it in his Taming of the
Shrew. From how many of us moderns has not that man
plagiarized! Somerville was not easily outdone in gracious-
ness; he always responded readily and melodiously to the
touch of civility; and thus for some days we made a duet of
politeness which was ravishing to the ear; or, to change the
figure, we commingled like two purling rivers of “ soft saw-
der.”

Fortune soon favored my plot by sending off the Wester-
velts to eat the birthday dinner of Westervelt senior, and by
inspiring Cousin Jule to take their escort down to New York
for the purpose of a shopping foray. The two Van Leers,
Hunter, and Somerville were left to keep bachelor’s hall at
Seacliff. Now I could give my debauch without much risk
that any excesses which might result from it would come
under the eyes or reach the ears of that young person whose
good opinion I still coveted.

“Mr. Somerville,” said I, “I owe you and your friends
276 SEACLIFF.

here a thousand thanks for the humanity with which you
have helped me kill my greatest enemy, Time. I never
expect to repay you, but-I have hit-on an awkward way of
showing my sense of the obligation. Suppose, gentlemen,
you all take dinner with me at the Rockford Hotel to-mor-
row.” ;

Somerville accepted with that air of frank gratitude which
was so charming in him. The Van Leers and Hunter ac-
cepted also, each after his fashion ; the brothers in their un-
demonstrative, heavy way,—not exactly stony,—more like
timber; Hunter with a jump into the air and a cock-a-doodle-
doo of defiance for my champagne bottles.

I rode over to Rockford, and bespoke a five o’clock dinner
of birds and whatever other delicacies were in season.

The appointed hour came, and we found ourselves at table.
The bill of fare consisted of soup, trout, bass, partridges,
woodcock, squirrels, all the vegetables of Yankeedom, and
a dessert of such things as one generally finds far away from
pavements. As for the wine, I had attended to that myself,
‘and felt sure that I could not be left adry..

“ Claret and champagne!” exclaimed Hunter, glancing at
my platoon of bottles. “Those are drinks to offer to a gen-
tleman. May the blessing of Bacchus abide with you, Fitz
Hugh! May the immortal gods be your most humble ser-
“vants |”

“ Some of them are hard masters,” observed Somerville.

“That rum old Bacchus, for example,” added Henry Van
Leer. “ Don’t he lay it on sometimes! ”

“ Henry, you are a blasphemer,” cried Hunter, who seemed
to get lively on the mere smell of the corks. “ Henry, I am
afraid you are not a religious man. How dare a mortal utter
such a sentiment in the face of a gold seal! Henry, remem-
ber that you may die at any moment. By the way, couldn’t
a fellow get. up a pun on gold seals and seal fishing? Fitz
Hugh, the soup is excellent. I will propose the landlord for
an honorary member of our P. B. society at college. No
CAKES AND ALE. 277

more, I thank you, Fitz Hugh ;—I don’t want to weaken my
claret. Mr. Somerville, what is your opinion of eating and
drinking ?”

Hunter talked beyond himself when he was happy, and
two glasses made him happy. Four were enough for his sus-
ceptible brain, and the sixth became to him that fearful though
diminutive enemy, that little thing which has done so great
harm in the world, a drop too much. I looked at him with
a presentiment of remorse as I thought how soon he would
be under my table.

_ “T have the greatest respect for eaters and drinkers,” said
Somerville. “In the first place, there are so many of them !
Vox populi, vox Det. You are quite right, Mr. Hunter, in
demanding reverence for the things and men of the table.
The gastronomist has never received justice from mankind
except in France ; and the consequence is that the French
are the most refined people in the world. One of the bless-
edest results of the French revolutions is that they dispense
such a number of good cooks throughout other countries. A
good cook, gentlemen, is a philanthropist ; he is a missionary
of digestion, happiness, and virtue; and the gastronomist is
his patron, his Mecenas. But I beg you, Mr. Hunter, as
you value your reputation for politeness and savoir vivre, not
to confound the gastronomist with the glutton. The glutton
has no taste, but simply a capacity for containing. All his
acquaintance with the mysteries of the table amounts to
knowing the solids from the fluids. Anything that goes down
answers his brute purpose. ‘Then there is the unfortunate
- practical eater, who supposes that we eat to. live, and who
_ judges of a dinner not so much while he tastes it as when
he comes to digest, it. Compared with such commonplace,
Gradgrind people as these, the gastronomist is an artist, a
poet. I wish there was a nation of epicures to conquer the
world and teach it cookery, as the Greeks taught it art,
and the Romans law. Gentlemen, I propose the gastron-
omist as an object of our reverential meditation.”
278 SEACLIFF.

Hunter’s mouth had been open and his tongue trembling
for some seconds. In general this youth was a miserably
poor listener, granting small appreciation to the wit or wisdom
of others, and only hearing you so far as you afforded him
opportunity for what he considered a brilliant reply. But
Somerville had put a bit in his jaw, and could hold him to
silence as long as he chose to speak; for it is a matter of
necessity with the would-be scapegrace and man of the world
that he should fall down before the real one and worship
him; the instinct is one of his moral vitals, and he cannot be
supposed to exist without it. Hunter drank the toast, and
then, bowing pointedly to Somerville, offered another.

“To the gastronomist of conversation ! ”

“A nice compliment and a tolerable figure ; but somehow
I have a vague sensation that I have heard it from you
before; perhaps in some former state of existence, now,”
responded Somerville, with that combined irony of thought
and flattery of smile which I had often noticed in him.
“You know, my friend, that the better a remark is, the less
you can repeat it; while, the more commonplace it is, the
more allowable is iteration. You may say, ‘ Fine morning’
—‘ Beautiful weather, day after day, without being consid-
ered a bore. But throw out a truly good joke, and you
must never utter it again, at least not in the same com-
pany.”

“Gentlemen,” said Hunter, smiling joyously around the
table, “TI call on you to reprove Mr. Somerville for despising
my poverty out of the midst of his abundance.”

The toady absolutely purred under his rebuke; as pleased
as Boswell when badgered by the great lexicographer; as
submissive as a good dog when kicked by his master. Rob-
ert Van Leer was far from being in so heavenly a humor.
Disgusted, perhaps, with Hunter’s sycophancy, and at all
events disliking the object of it, he would not trouble himself
to restrain a growl.

“TI say, I’d never brag of being a gourmy,” he remarked.
CAKES AND ALE. 279

“Pretty thing to swell about !—knowing how to get up a
nice dish and eat it!”

“ Please to consider the Protean nature of vanity, Robert,”
‘observed Somerville. “It takes all sorts of whimsical
shapes. Why, I have known people to boast of their imper-
.fections, such as not caring a rush for scenery, not knowing
one tune from another, &c.”

«“ Oh—yes,” returned Bob, who felt himself hit, but did not
know how to retaliate.

_ “ The fact is, that every man is proud of being himself,” I
remarked, by way of giving the subject generality and putting
a stop to these personal applications,

“Very true and a very proper feeling,” said Somerville.
“ Every man has reason to thank God that he is not as other
men; not in the sense of the Pharisee, because he is better ;
simply because he is different. Nature has been careful to
give each of us a distinct character, and it is nothing more
than common gratitude and common sense to be proud of it
and keep it intact. I should hate to be atwin. Twinship
demolishes one’s. apparent individuality so disgracefully! I
believe that every man hates to have a namesake about him.
In general we like to be known as ourselves, and valued for
our own peculiarities. Nature has implanted the feeling uni-
versally, and it is a good feeling to have. Show me an
original, an eccentric, and I will show you a more natural
man than you can find among the lackeys of conventionalism.
Why, I would rather be a remarkable blockhead than be
indistinguishable from my sensible, ordinary neighbors.”

Robert was vaguely troubled; he always had an uneasy
sense that he was a slow fellow; he felt just now that his
late attack had not placed Somerville at a disadvantage ; he
feared that he had been hit somewhere without being sensible
of it; and so, to defend himself, he defined his position.

“ Well,” he says, sturdily, “I consider myseff just about as
sharp as the average; no sharper, but just as sharp.”

“My dear friend, you flatter us,” observed Somerville,
- 280 SEACLIFF.

with his most caressing smile. “ Allow me to take a glass
of wine with you.”

I know that the remark puzzled Robert at the time, and I
doubt if he ever decided whether it was irony or compliment.

We were far along in the courses by this time, for I pass
over much of our conversation. I drank as little as might
be, but pushed the bottles about vigorously, and engaged my
guests in those vinous comparisons of brands and vintages,
which so few men esteem odious until the next morning.
Somerville took his liquor without stint, but was not at all
the worse for it. From course to course, from bottle to bottle,
I watched him sedulously, though cautiously, without discov-
ering that his wits wandered, that his tongue tripped, or that
his eye had a more humid sparkle than usual. I did not
despair, however, but encouraging myself with the words of
the heroic Taylor, “ A little more grape,” continued to bring
up my bacchanalian artillery. The Van Leers strove on, like
the two Ajaxes, side by side, stubborn, victorious. Perhaps
it might be set down as a general rule, that timber heads are
not easily mellowed and that the fewer ideas a man has, the
less likely they are to be muddled by alcohol. Hunter
fought as adventurous a battle as any of them, but with far
inferior success. The claret staggered him; the first glass
of champagne penetrated a vital part; and by the time we
reached the dessert he lost his sense of decency and began
to tell vulgar stories.

“ Capital, my dear friend,” said Somerville. “Very bril-
liant in its way, that was; but then, don’t you see that you
are discouraging the rest of us? I have always noticed that
fat or profane stories kill conversation. After sucha piece
of voluptuousness as that, for instance, there is a ridiculous
but natural ‘feeling in the company, that to offer anything of
a modest nature would be to insure ill-success. It is like
hock after brandy ; nobody can taste it. So now, be modest,
my good fellow, and suffer us to be modest.” :

“ All right, Somerville,” maundered Hunter. “ But I wish
CAKES AND ALE. 281

you could hear some of our fellahs talk. Oh—h, jaw—ly
Junes !”

“But I say, I think swearing helps out a thing sometimes,”
remarked Henry Van Leer.

“A poor thing, yes; but not a good one,” said Somerville.
eR really good thing needs nothing ba a clear, concise state-
ment in decent English to make it tell.

“Oh, but suppose a feller hasn’t got the gift of the gab.”

“ Well, let him acquire it. Let him, to begin with, get rid
of such conversational awkwardnesses as profanity and vul-
garity. I feel positive that in general the hardest swearer is
the poorest talker, intellect being equal. He depends chiefly
on a list of stupid oaths to give his jokes point. Now let him
quit all that sort of thing ; let him throw aside his unmeaning
balderdash of damns, and allow his mother-tongue a fair
chance ; and, depend upon it, he will soon have a decorous
vocabulary sufficient for any man’s social necessities. His
words will represent ideas; they will be really vigorous,
sharp-edged, and picturesque; and not, like the language of
beasts, mere physical clamor. I believe it is conceded that
in literature nothing is witty which depends for its point upon
blasphemy. ‘The cleverest talkers that I know of swear not
at all.” :

It was all admirable; it was all according to Somerville’s
usual practice ; but I still believed that the man was secretly
given to cakes and ale.

' ©Well, I’ve been to Washington,” obseayed Van Leer.
“ Pretty much all the Congressmen swear.’

« A set of vulgar snobs,” said eae “ Three quar-
ters of them have neither talent nor breeding ; they are just
fit to lead in a Tammany caucus ; they are the merest roarers
and wire-pullers.”

“ T remonshrate, Somerville,” exclaimed Hunter, with that
pathetic solemnity which Nature vouchsafes to man when he
is half drunk. “I beg your pardon for correcting you, my
eshteemed friend. But I love my country; I reshpect the
282 SEACLIFF.

fathers of my country; I reshpect Washington and Franklin
and Adams; I reshpect Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Daniel Webster was the greatest orator that ever lived. I
heard him shpeak when he ‘addreshed our fellahs when I was
a Fresh.”

“Now stop that, Hunter,” put in Robert. “That was
when I was in college. Webster died the year before you
entered.” ag

“No he didn’t,” asseverated Hunter. “I entered before:
him. I was there when he entered,—I mean when he shpoke.-
I tell you, fellahs, I’ve shaken hands with mosht all our big-
bugs, and I reshpect ’em. I can’t bear to hear even my
eshteemed friend Mr. Somerville talk dishreshpectfully.”

“T apologize, Hunter,” smiled Somerville. “I ought to
have remembered,-when I spoke of Congress, that you are
behind the scenes.”

The Van Leer throats trumpeted forth a gust of satiric
laughter, as unfeeling as a northeaster howling over a ship-
wreck. Hunter, even when sober, had such a mania for
representing himself as generally known, and for indulging
in personal reminiscences of distinguished characters, extend-
ing even to things which happened before his birth, that,
judging him by his own stories, you would have supposed
him to. be sixty or eighty years old, if not an outright cen-
tenarian. He went on with his antiquarian recollections, and
presently described Webster as being shix feet and a half
high in his shtockings feet. “ What will you bet on it?”
he asked, looking round the table domineeringly.

“You forget, Hunter; you mean shixteen feet and a half,”
roared Henry Van Leer, mimicking the poor young fellow’s
stammering speech.

“ Mr. Hunter is quite correct, in one light,” observed Som-
erville. “We do instinctively associate the ideas of mental
and physical greatness. I have myself seen Webster when
he seemed to be seven feet high. I have seen Rachel look
loftier still. Every kind of sublimity produces this same illu-
CAKES AND ALE. 283

sion. I am no musician; I can’t learn the simplest tane until
I have heard it a dozen times ; I am as disgracefully ignorant
of the notes as if I were a Yahoo; but I am sensible to the
exaltation of music, as I am to the exaltation of wine, although
I cannot produce it. I tell you that I have heard strains in
the Grand Opera of Paris, and many other places, that made
me feel as if I were a hundred feet high,—as if I could rise
up and stick my head through the roof,—as if I were lofty
enough to have snow on my summits. Only two or three
notes, perhaps, but in an instant I was above the atmosphere
and could hardly breathe.” °

. Somerville had already drunk two bottles, and yet he could
talk thus rationally, if I may not say brilliantly. There
seemed to be little hope indeed of bringing him to that friendly
mellowness, that confidential. irrationality, which lets out the.
inner man ina full stream. I would have pressed him to
drink deeper, but in order to do that effectually, it was neces-
sary that I should myself imbibe recklessly ; and the cham-
pagne had already mounted to my head, prudently as I had
tippled. It was pretty clear that, whatever else he might be,
he was no drunkard, chiefly, perhaps, from a difficulty in
holding enough to disorder him. As a last resource, I turned
the conversation on women, hoping that he might himself
bring it around to the ladies of Seacliff; and utter some indis-
cretion which would open the eyes of my companions to the.
nature of his objects in the Westervelt family. It may be
that it was a clever idea, but it succeeded exactly as ill as if
it had been a stupid one.

“What is your opinion of this Woman’s Rights move-
ment?” was my cunning inquiry.

“Absurd! The only essential woman’s rights are the
rites of marriage. If she gets those, she asks no other. — It
is chiefly old maids and females under the ban of ugliness
who are carried away by this shrieking. Don’t you see why?
They want revenge on the men for not offering themselves.
The whole thing has been arranged very properly by Provi-
284 SEACLIFF.

dence. Wemen must bear the great responsibilities of life, and
the women must bear the little ones. So it always has been,
and so it always will be. Why, the superiority of manhood
is evident in the mere brute circumstance of avoirdupois.
Wouter Van Twiller would be quite up to the question. Do
you remember his ingenious method of settling the accounts
of two litigious tradesmen by weighing their books against
each other? Well, put that rule to work on our modern
puzzle. Suppose there are seven million grown men in this
country, and the same number of women. Now estimate
each man at one hundred and forty-six pounds, or fourteen
men to the ton, and you will have a gross masculine avoirdu-
pois of about five hundred thousand tons. Estimating the
women at one hundred and twenty-two pounds each, or
eighteen to the ton, and you have only three hundred and
eighty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight tons of
female flesh. Can’t a blind man see that the greater tonnage
ought to make the smaller kick the beam? Why should
Nature put so much more material into man, if he was not to
lead? Of course, elephants, oxen, and so forth are excluded
from this argument, as they have no souls. Gentlemen,
here’s to the memory of Wouter Van Twiller! Hunter, did
you happen to know him?”

“ Who ?” inquired Hunter, solemnly. “ Can’t say.. What
shoshiety ? ”

The poor youth was by this time so far muddled, that, like
Brahma in his eternal calm, past, present, and future were all
one to him. He made a last effort now to shake off the evil
genius which had risen from the green, slender-necked bottle-
at his elbow, and begun, Comus-like, to change him to a beast. :
Starting up resolutely, he took several turns about the room
with the peculiar gait, composed of a skip and a shamble,
which characterizes a calf in that early period of his infancy
during which he is known to a certain order of naturalists as
a “staggering bob.” a

“ Excuse me, fellahs,” said he. “ Don’t notish me. I want
CAKES AND’ ALE. 285

to stretch my legs a little. I an’t going to flunk. I could
rush through another bottle eashily. Obh—h, we’re Junes !
jaw—ly Junes !”

“Come, Hunter! don’t sing ; it goes to the head,” observed
Henry Van Leer, winking.

- “T believe you, my boy,” returned the unfortunate. “I
feel a little queer a’ready. I guessh I’d better lie down.”

And down he laid himself, deliberately, just where he was,
first on his elbow, then on his back, sick, white and helpless.

“Ah! that is a sign that he has drunk too much,” ob-
served Somerville, calmly surveying the defunct. “TI think,
Mr. Fitz Hugh, that he had better be put to bed.”

I rang the bell and ordered two porters and a bedroom.
The Jolly June was gently borne away to a pillowy sanctuary,
and left to that awful sleep which is one of the rewards of
the drunkard. The sight of Hunter’s overthrow, combined
with a certain sense of rotation which came upon me when I
shut my eyes, frightened me now about myself; and calling a
waiter, I asked him if he could furnish us with some café
notr. :

“Some what?” inquired the young man, who did not un-
derstand the lingo of France.

“Café noir,—black coffee,” I explained.

“ Black coffee!! You mean black tea, don’t you?” said
he, evidently impressed with the idea that I was drunk.

No man likes to have this charge brought against him,
especially when there is some color for it; and accordingly
I proceeded to state in my most rational manner that café
noir was strong coffee without milk. In a few minutes we
had a huge pot-full of this mild antidote to wine, smoking
under our noses. Somerville resumed the subject of woman,
and I listened patiently, throwing in an insidious leading
question now ‘and then, but without eliciting from him a
single remark which had a decided aroma of bad morals.

“ Women can never govern; they have no administrative
talent,” he went on in his unobtrusively dictatorial style.
286 — SEACLIFF.

“They can hardly rule children, and they cannot rule
their adult inferiors. A merchant will employ a dozen
clerks, and as many porters, and never speak of trouble with
them, while his wife is perpetually fretting about the insub-
ordination of her three female domestics. (Pretty domestics
they are, who cannot be in the least domesticated, if the
word means taming.) Every lone woman at the South is
completely run over by her own niggers, her personal chat-
tels, whom she can whip or sell as she chooses. Let our
strong-minded angels give good proof of their administrative
abilities in the nursery and kitchen, before they demand the
Secretaryship of the Interior, or the middle seat of the’ Su-
preme Court. For my part, I believe that women are a
weak set ;—I know they are. They are easily flattered,
easily fooled by sophistry. Aaron Burr was quite right in
declaring that they craved flattery, and that every gentleman
ought to treat them to it. Aaron Burr was a great man.
The world has been hard upon him, when it would have done
better to boast of him. I shouldn’t feel worthy to untie the
shoes of Aaron Burr. Of all men I owe him most, although
I never saw him. His manners, his conversation, have done
more to form me than any other influence which I can name.
Of course, I do not approve his libertine ideas,” he added,
while a cold sneer glittered for a moment on his face, and
then melted away in its prevailing blandness.

This was the style of his conversation that evening, and
generally. It was a mixture of truth and error, but it had
not the faintest leaven of drunkenness or dissoluteness.

We lighted our cigars as dusk came on, and thus my con-
spiracy ended in smoke. The innocent Hunter had fallen
its only victim, and happily the innocent Hunter was one of
those enthusiastic natures who look upon inebriety as a proof
of the highest manliness.
 

 

 

CHAPTER XXI.

A RAY OF LIGHT.

‘T is a common saying, that a certain bottomless and
disreputable place is paved with good resolutions ;

and I think that in those times I might have con-
tracted for the entire unfathomable job without alarming risk
of failure. Every hour I admitted that I ought to quit Sea-
cliff immediately, and came to a desperate determination to
do so, but my silly heart dragged on my will like a ball and
chain, rendering motion so painful that I called it impossible.
There was one unhappy Fitz Hugh who was for going, and
another unhappy Fitz Hugh who was for staying, and the
latter was the most obstinate. One morning the two went
up to Seacliff together, the strong-minded one declaring that
he was about to bid Miss Westervelt an everlasting farewell,
while his feebler brother whimpered that, for his part, he
never could bring himself to do it, never!

She was sitting in the veranda, sketching leaves and vine-
twists from that amatory honeysuckle beneath which I had
once come so near confessing to her what I have repeatedly
confessed to my, I hope, discreet reader. Her hand was
rosy against the white glare of the paper;-her face was
downcast, marble-still, and wondrously shaded; her whole
expression as beautiful as a perfect soul. All my being was
moved to address her in words of exceeding gentleness,
whether I bade her adieu or not; but in another instant I
observed that she was dressed in that accursed plaid of
288 SEACLIFF.

dead-leaf colors; and so I answered her kindly “ Good morn-
ing” with a grave, silent bow.

At that moment, before I had opened my lips, Genevieve
came into the veranda, nodded as she took a seat, glanced at
her sister, then at me again, and burst out laughing. “I
don’t wonder you stare at that dress,” said she. “ Mary, you
are found out.”

“ Indeed—I—I don’t understand,” I stammered, as I
turned some tint or other, perhaps a plaid of dead-leaf-
colors. :
“ But you have seen the dress before, haven’t you?” asked
Genevieve.

“Yes,” said I, pathetne myself up in ee solemnity 5
“T have seen the dress before.”

“T thought so,” she replied, with a stare of surprise for my’
dramatic manner. “I knew it. -Come, Sis, don’t be vexed,”
she added, caressing Mary’s cheek, which had flushed a trifle.
“You attack my extravagance, and I take revenge on your
economy. Which of us is the severest ? ”

“You are, Genevieve,” said Mary. “You needn’t have
talked about this to Mr. Fitz Hugh, even if he had noticed’
it.”

“For Heaven’s sake, do explain!” I exclaimed, for I
began to hope something better than my fears.

Genevieve laughed at my eagerness, and Mary put me out:
of my misery. “ Why, this is all, Mr. Fitz Hugh. I am
wearing an old silk of mamma’s. She gave it to me two or
three weeks ago, and I made it over for myself. It was
the sheer spirit of saving; for I dislike plaids, in general.*
There.” =m

“Ohb!!” said I. Not another word did I utter; not
another sound arose from the great whirl of gladness within
me; but I might have talked a year without speaking so
much as I did in that single syllable. I presume that my
eyes flashed and my cheeks flushed, as if with wine, for
everything around me looked dream-like, and in my ears
A RAY OF LIGHT. 289

there was a hum of blood rushing to the brain. I wished
that Genevieve would take herself away. It would have
been agreeable to have the sky shut down and cover noon
with midnight. I wanted to kneel at Mary’s feet unseen, and
ask her pardon unheard, by the hour together, for the hateful .
suspicions which I had harbored against her. It would not
do to tell her of them; not even to let her doubt of them;
no, that would never do. I was the guilty one now, because
Thad heard innocence accused without vindicating it; but I
must never confess my turpitude, or I might receive a pun-
ishment greater than. I could bear; I must try to live my
repentance, so that forgiveness should be granted without
ever having been asked in words.

“You don’t feel disposed to laugh at my economy, I hope,”
she said.

“Not at all. I admire it,” returned I, with such a fervor
of voice and manner that she glanced at me to see whether
I was in jest or earnest.

“Well, I never!” laughed Genevieve. “No, I never
did! as Mrs. Treat expresses it. What enthusiasm about a
little saving! I must run and put on a pair of old shoes to
please Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

She danced away giggling, and did me the favor not to
return. In a spirit of becoming meekness, diffidence, and
worship, I approached Miss Westervelt, and, standing partly
behind her, looked at her unobserved, under pretence of
watching the progress of the drawing. I was afraid, or
rather I hoped, that I disturbed her, for the little fingers did
not sketch quite as deftly as usual, and I could see, in spite
of the drooped head and the overhanging masses of golden |
rippled hair, that the blood was burning bright in the blonde
cheek. I should like to know. who wrote that delicious little
poem in an old number of “ Putnam,” beginning with this
verse :—

“] treasure in secret some Jong, fine hair -

Of tenderest brown, but so inwardly golden,
18
290 SEACLIFF.

I half used to fancy the sunshine there

Was only caught for a moment and holden
While I could say ‘ Dearest!’ and kiss it, and then _
In pity let go to the summer again.” ;

That long, fine hair, of tenderest brown, but so inwardly
golden, I have seen it, I know it, it was bers, but I could not
have described it so.

One false stroke followed another on the paper, until she
suddenly stopped sketching with a little gesture of despair.
“Qh, these warm mornings!” she said. “They make me
nervous. I can’t draw.”

“One can hardly draw his breath,” I replied; but my
heart was not in the quibble.

Then there was a silence which I was only half conscious
of, but which may have been embarrassing to her, inasmuch
as she broke it by an abrupt change in the conversation.
“JT understand that you will leave Seacliff in a day or two,
Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

“Indeed!” said I. “Oh! yes. No, not at all. Who
told you?”

“ Robert.”

“ Ah, Robert did, did he? Yes, I believe I did say some-
thing of the sort to Robert. But I’ve changed my mind ;—
I mean I was joking ;—Robert takes everything so in ear-
nest! I certainly never intended to go,—except in case of
of unforeseen circumstances. I don’t think I could
pass the summer anywhere else more agreeably ; that is, not
half so agreeably.”

There are moments when a man feels like taking himself.
by the hair of his head, and hustling himself out of the room,
with every expression of contempt and contumely that can be
applied, properly or not properly, to a blockhead. I think
that I never had a more animated sense of the gulfs of stu-
pidity which at times open themselves within me, than I had
while I was maundering these contradictions and imbecilities.
I tired to awaken my wits, but before they could dictate a

 
A RAY OF LIGHT. 291

word to me, Miss Westervelt spoke again. Her eyes were
fixed on her sketch, and her voice was very low and slightly
tremulous, as she said, “Mr. Fitz Hugh, what ought a lady
to do with anonymous letters ?”

“ Burn them,” I answered, after a long look of wonder at
the question. “ Burn them, and think no more of them.
I never knew any truth or good to come by an anonymous
letter.”

“‘T have been troubled lately with anonymous correspond-
ents,” she continued, gravely. “I have shown the letters to
no one yet, but I have a great mind to let you see them.
Perhaps I ought to do it, for they concern you. Here they
are,—two. Read them, and give them back to me.”

The first that I opened was on white English paper, in a
man’s handwriting, upright like print and evidently disguised.
It read :— 1

“Miss WESTERVELT :—

“T write this at the earnest request of my daughter,
who is a friend of yours, and who wishes me to interfere
between you and the slanders of a certain young man who is
in the habit of visiting your country-house. My child has
repeated some of these falsehoods to me, while others are
of so shocking a nature that she declares she will never utter
them to a human being. I will not state a single one of the
vile fictions here, because I do not wish to pain you, and also
because your character is so pure that you will never find it
necessary to contradict them. Your friends will do that for
you. But even if the slanders are not worth your notice,
the slanderer ought to be punished. Of course, you will
simply exclude him from your society, without explain-
ing the reason to him or to any one else. The less said in
such matters, the sooner they are over. His name is: Fitz
Hugh.

“I was about to sign this, but my daughter forbids it. She
dreads to have even the shadow of a cloud fall between her
292 SEACLIFF.

and your friendship. Very unwillingly, therefore, I send
you an anonymous letter.”

“ Miss Westervelt,” said I,“ I hope that you have not
believed one word of this. You cannot have been so bard.
I do assure you that it is an utter falsehood. I have not
spoken a word against you, and I could not. Don’t you
believe me?”

She looked me steadily in the eyes, not with suspicion, but
with irene earnest kindness, as she replied, “Yes, I do be-
lieve you.” es

“ Thank you!” I answered. “And thank you too for not
showing it to others. They might have been more unchari-
table. Even your father might have felt himself compelled
to dismiss me until I could clear myself.”

He would have been delighted to do it, I am afraid, was
the thought which I did not utter. ;

“Give me the other letter now,” she said. “I do not be-
lieve that, either; and there is no use in annoying you with
it. »”

I replied, as I suppose most persons would have done, by
begging leave to read it. It-was written on pink paper, in a
delicate feminine hand, without comma, period, or other pune-
tuation, except italics, after the favorite manner of many
young ladies in composing. “Dear Mary,” it commenced.
“I hope you received dear papa’s note of warning I made
him write it although he hated to He despises anonymous
letters although I don’t see why for almost all Valentines
are anonymous But I obliged him to do it as I told you
Indeed it was high time. Those dreadful stories of Mr Fitz
Hugh shame on him had begun to circulate Papa and I
have contradicted them everywhere Don’t be uneasy we
will see that they are put an end to I hope that you have
packed the creature off before this I should like to get hold
of him and pull him about the room by his hair a litle You
must never know my name *Adiew dearest darling.”
A RAY OF LIGHT. 298

' ® Have you any friends who write like this ?” I questioned.
“ Plenty who write in that style, but none in that hand-
writing. It is uncommonly legible. It makes one think of a
schoolmistress.”
“Do you know the handwriting of the other letfent :”

“ How should I? It is disguised, of course.”

“ And you don’t suspect the author of either ?”

“No—I do not. I have run over. all my acquaintance,
and I can’t fix upon- one who seems likely to send me such
thines gs. ”

“ Well, Iam innocent. I do assure you that I am. Both
these letters are false, altogether.”

“I know it. I pledge you my word that I do not suspect
you, and have not.”

I held out my hand, and she gave me hers, which I pressed
so earnestly that it was almost unconsciously. She did not
return the pressure, but a soft carnation like the inner tint
of a conch-shell mounted to her forehead, and her eyes
drooped with a frightened sparkle.

“ Now you shall see what I will do with them,” she said.
“ Have you a match ?”

I handed her one of those little tin cylinders which a
smoker is very apt to carry about him. She unfolded the
letters, laid them on the lower stone of the granite steps, ap-
plied an allumette, and the scurrilous little sheets were soon
cinders, blowing about the garden walks. In the midst of
the miniature holocaust, I heard a step behind me, and, turn-
ing, saw Somerville at the corner of the house. He nodded
amicably to me, surveyed Miss Westervelt’s proceedings with
the composure and incuriosity becoming a man of the world,
and strolled slowly away through the grounds, smoking with
the tasteful, innocent placidity of “a scholar, a gentleman, and
a Christian.”

“ And so you have been suspecting me as a slanderous tat-
tler for a fortnight now,” I said as Miss Westervelt resumed
her seat.
294 SEACLIFF.

“Not suspecting you. But it is a fortnight since one of
the letters reached me ; the other came a few days afterward.
They were both  eiacuainsias in New York, as you saw. So
your enemies live there.”

“ Not necessarily ; end not necessarily enemies ; it is more
probably one person.” :

“TJ thought of that. It is much the most likely. But those
reports,—who could have put them in circulation ? Perhaps
there are none; perhaps it is all a fabrication.”

“T do not doubt it. I think that I would not even inquire
if there have been reports. The mere question would make
silly people suppose that slanders had got out; and then, be
sure, slanders would soon be out. No, there is not a shadow
of truth in those letters ; and the author,—well, I should look
for him here rather than in New York.”

“ You think so!” she exclaimed. “ Whom do you mean?”

“ Did you ever suspect Mrs. Van Leer?” I asked.

“Tt is not possible,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Jule is lively and almost wild,—no no, I don’t mean to
say that—but she would not do anything like this,—she is
far too good for this. Besides, she is a great friend of yours.”

The look which accompanied this last remark would, I
now think, have expressed something like grave inquiry if
not reproach, had it not been quelled the moment it had
wandered to my face; but I did not then color under it nor
even notice it distinctly, for my coquetries with Mrs. Van
Leer had quite slipped my mind, so earnestly was I occupied
with the discoveries of the last half hour.

“Neither do I suspect her,” I replied. “She has not a
bad heart, and she has no object in IEE either of us.
Robert, too, is incapable of such meanness.”

“Oh, quite so!” she asseverated, with a warmth which al-
most provoked me.

“Mr. Hunter is feather-brained enough, but not wicked
enough,” I went. on. “There is no one else but Somerville ;
—no one but Somerville.”
A RAY OF LIGHT. 295

© Do you think it possible?” she asked gravely, doubting-"
ly, yet with no surprise nor reproof in her eyes.

“YT do—I do! I don’t wish to be uncharitable, but I sus-
pect that man,—I dread him,—TI detest him. I should like
never to see his face again.”

She remained silent a moment, while I watched her face
anxiously.

“ Well, I doubt him also,” she said at last. “In truth I
feel a dislike to him that I could hardly justify. I wish that
he was away ; and he would be oe

She stopped, for Mrs. Van Leer’s voice and footstep were
heard in the entry. An instant more, and the gay, frivolous,
soda-water creature came polking into the veranda, and ap-

‘ proached us through a whirl of mock courtesies.

“Don’t stop,” said she. “ Affairs of state, I sup—pose.
Don’t be silent on my account. I shouldn’t understand them
the least in the world. Just go right on at your ease, and
settle the concerns of the u—niverse. I would hate to have
the earth stand still because I was in the way. Oh well, if
you won’t talk, I will. I’m al—ways glad of a chance to
throw a few words away ;—I have so many of them.”

She sat down in one of the iron chairs, braced her feet
against the edge of our settee, and fell to fanning herself.
“Mr. Fitz Hugh,” she continued, “ how can a person be com-
fortable these warm mornings. What con—solation is there
for. humanity when the thermometer is up to nine—ty ?”

“ Think of the eternal fitness of things and the great laws
of nature,” said I. “ When I had the gout in a former state
of existence, I used to calm myself by meditating on the stu-
pendous truths of astronomy. I found it a most delightful
and consolatory thing to consider that the sun is eight hun-
dred and eighty thousand miles in diameter. By the side of
this gigantic fact how small one’s great toe appears ?”

“Oh, ne—cessarily. However, I don’t seem to get much
comfort from the idea that my great:toe is a. little toe.”

“ A lady sometimes draws comfort from the idea that her
foot is a little foot,” I remarked. .

 
296 SEACLIFF.

She thrust out her foot immediately ; it was both small and
-handsome, and I had often admired it; but now I would not
look at it. Accordingly after a moment, it was withdrawn
from sight under its rustling covertures, while a faint shadow
of annoyance appeared on the face of its lively owner. :

“Miss Westervelt, won’t you go to sketching again?” said
I. “TI like to watch the work.” ~

She did as I requested, and I overlooked her, both of us
silent. I did not lift my eyes to Mrs. Van Leer, and yet I
could see, or rather feel, that she was not at all pleased: with
‘this method of managing the interview. Now her feet
pushed against the settee ; now they dropped upon the floor
and kicked among the embroideries ; now they climbed back
to the settee and shook it with their wriggling. She fanned
herself violently, she arranged the skirts of her morning-
dress, she unfastened and refastened her breastpin, she jerked
and twirled her ringlets until they seemed as full of life as
the hairs of Medusa. Miss Westervelt stopped sketching
once or twice, and at last remonstrated.

“ Julia, is that you jogging the settee so? You make my
leaves look more like geological bird-tracks than anything
else.”

“Tm glad of it,’ responds Julia. ‘ What do you leave
-me alone in this way for? Mr. Fitz Hugh, at least, might
-have the politeness to say something amu—sing.”

“JT have the politeness,” said I, “ but not the ability.”

“Oh, say a few such things as you said to me when we
‘walked to the Cedars,” she laughed, mischievously. “I
thought them intense—ly diverting.”

I made no answer, and allowed myself to look just as e
as I felt. Puzzled and perhaps bothered by my unexpected
severity of countenance, she remained quiet a few moments,
and ‘then spoke with all the sweetness of butter and honey.
“Mr. Fitz Hugh, I have heard one thing of you that I hope
is not true. Robert told me last evening that you talked of
going away. I felt quite sure that he must be mista—ken,—
A RAY OF LIGHT. 297

wasn’t he? You certainly would think twice, and a great
many times more, I hope, before you would leave us to this
dole—ful solitude.”

“T was just saying to Miss Westervelt that I had no in-
tention of quitting Pa and Ma Treat.”

“Oh, don’t talk of it!” said she. “How they would miss
you! And Johnny, too! you couldn’t of course think of
parting with that dear, apple-headed urchin. You ought at
least to stay with him till it is perfectly certain that he will
have a nose to his face. But, seriously, we ought to leave
Seacliff. A lady must go to Saratoga or somewhere once a
year ; or she gets forgot—ten, and people consider her passée.
I would rejoice to start to-morrow.”

“Why don’t you?” returned I, with the hardest heart in
the world.

She looked at me with a semi-defiant expression, which
seemed to say, I can be as indifferent as you. “I don’t go,”
she drawled, “sim—ply be—cause Henry wont take me.
He would rather catch one shark than attend all the balls of
the season.”

“You might go to Newport; there he could have his
sharks, and you could have your balls.”

“T wont go to Newport,” she declared. “I hate Newport.
There are too many Bostonians there; and they are cer-
tainly the most prig—gish, pedan—tic, stuck-up people that I
ever saw. They absolutely pretend to look down on New
Yorkers. A Bostonian holds his head higher above his
shoulders than any other creature on earth, not excepting a
cam—el—leopard.”

“That’s because he wears stand-up collars,” said I. “ It
is surely better than to carry his head under his arms like
the Africans of Herodotus, or resting on his collar-bones like
the generality of Young America. For my part, I like the
Tremont type. It is on the whole the best moral and intel-
lectual man this side of the Atlantic. Let me tell you an

‘anecdote. A friend of mine, a doctor, was walking the pave-
13 *
298 SEACLIFF.

ment of his city close behind a stranger who seemed to have
just arrived. The stranger coughed and cleared his throat.
Every time that he did so, he stepped to the edge of the sides
walk and spit in the gutter. Most Americans would have
-expectorated over the pavement, trusting to the next lady’s
dress to sweep it up. ‘That man is a Bostonian,’ said my
friend to himself. He followed the stranger to his hotel, saw
him write his name, stepped up to. the book and at the end
of the line found the word Boston. Then look at the very.
collegians,—a class in the imitative age. They take. the
tone of the city. Harvard dresses better, has better manners,
rows a shell-boat faster, and turns out more famous men (as
I have heard Boston people say) than any other university
in the country.”

“Who ever thinks of bringing stu—dents into an argu-
ment!” droned Mrs. Van Leer. “It’s of no use talking, Mr.
Fitz Hugh. If there is anything in the world that I hate
thoroughly, it is a Bosto—nian, and espe—cially a Boston
la—dy.”

“That is beautiful, Miss Westervelt; ” said I, turning to
the sketch, or rather to the sketcher. “I know very little
about drawing, but it seems to me that this is fit to engrave
from. I envy you this talent, and the use you might make
of it. A good sketcher can ‘give so much innocent and en-
during pleasure to friends. He or she can strike off a trifle
in a few minutes,—a house, a face, a caricature, perhaps,—
which will be a lasting memento of some pleasant interview,
and will always be treasured by whoever receives it.”

“Can’t you understand, Mary?” asked Mrs. Van Leer,
maliciously. “TI never heard such barefaced beggary.”

“No, no; he did not mean that,” smiled Miss Westervelt.
“ Besides, he must not ask for it. I have promised. it to
some one for a special purpose.”

She had promised it to some one! Did you hear that,
reader? and what did you think of it? I wanted to ask.
who that some one was, but I dared not, for fear that she

.
A RAY OF LIGHT. 299

would tell me, and then I might blush or grow pale, and then
Mrs. Van Leer would laugh at me. I looked cautiously
around, to see if Bob was anywhere near with heaven in
his most earthly visage; but he was not visible, and so
I stared abstractedly at the sky, as if I cared nothing for
things sublunary, or as if the diameter of the sun were my
perfect consolation in earthly trials. Before I could think
of another remark to make, Mr. Westervelt’s feminine ac-
cents sounded from within, calling “ Mary.”

. So Mrs. Van Leer and I were left together, she with her
feet against my settee, and I with my eyes in the air. It
was not my intention to speak again until Miss Westervelt
returned ; but my companion had something on her mind, or
at least on her tongue. She waited about ten seconds for
me, and then, finding that I was either stupidly or mali-
ciously wasting time, she shut up her fan and opened her
mouth, saying, “ You don’t seem to feel so—ciable this
morning, Mr. Fitz Hugh. I hope you are not melancholy.”

“ Quite the contrary; never was happier in my life, that
I can recollect.”

A little pause, and then she asked, pleadingly, “ Are you
vexed?”

“No, I am not vexed,” said I, in a most unamiable tone.
“ ‘What should I be vexed at?”

“T am afraid that I annoyed you by speaking of our walk
to the Cedars,” she replied, humbly. Then she added,
gayly, “ Come, you were ve—ry saucy ; you must acknowledge
that, now. But I forgave you for it there and then; and I
have said nothing about it to any one; and I never shall say
anything ; so don’t let. it annoy you.”

“Oh, Mrs. Van Leer!” I groaned. “ Well—you are
right.. I was impertinent and absurd. But I have done
with all that. T’ask your pardon, sincerely ; and I give you
my word that you shall never be troubled by any such non-
sense from me again.”

Had I gained a-single step in her good will by this ac-
800 SEACLIFF.

knowledgment, and this promise? I did not expect to, and I
certainly had not, as I could see in the quick flame that
heated her cheek, and the sulky look of discontent and morti-
fication that followed it. What coquette, married or un-
married, was ever pleased to hear a man repent that he
had flirted with her, and declare that he would sin thus no
more ?

“You are vexed,” she said, petulantly. “You are angry
with me, and I don’t see why, for I have done nothing that
you could fairly take offence at.”

“No, you have done nothing,” I admitted, perfectly ii
ling, however, to quarrel. “And I am not angry with you,
nor with any one but myself. I have apologized to you, and
I will do it again if you demand it.”

“T don’t want to hear your apologies,” she replied, redden-
ing violently. “ What do you make them for? They are
the greatest insult of all,—so cold-blooded and deliberate,
and malicious ! ”

How strange it was! At the Cedars she was not offended
with me, although I showed the manners of a Tom Jones ;
but now that I begged her pardon for my impertinence, she
was so provoked that the tears sparkled among her eye-
lashes. I began to pity her, as well as to reflect that a false
truce might be less perilous than open warfare. “Oh, Mrs.
Van Leer!” I exclaimed ; “what can I say to regain your
good opinion? You are patient toward the blunders and
faults of everybody else; why can’t you be forbearing to-
ward mine? Come,.it is you who are angry, and not I.
Why won’t you give me a kind word now?”

“Oh! you are re—ally sorry, then?” she replied, her
eyes lighting up and a pleased smile stealing over her lips.
“Well, I was not vexed; of course I was not. You are
forgiv—en. There!”

She offered me her hand, and I could not avoid taking it
in mine; but I did not press it as I had pressed another and
prettier hand that morning; and I noticed that she threw
A RAY OF LIGHT. 801

herself back in her seat with a little pout of disappointment.
I could hardly help laughing aloud as I thought of the whole
scene and its conclusion ; it had been a perfect lover’s quar-
rel in appearance, and yet neither of us was one particle in
love with the other. At that moment I heard male lungs
hooting, “ Fitz Hugh! Fitz Hugh!” and looking round, I
saw Bob in the garden, gesturing to me with some such
frantic emphasis as if he had the St. Vitus’ dance.

“ Don’t mind him,” insinuated Mrs. Van Leer. “ Some
absurdity, not worth going down stairs to listen to. What
is it, Robert ?”

‘But Bob, without stirring from his position under the
prape-vines, put his hands, funnel-like, to his. mouth and
bawled again, “ Fitz Hugh! Here! Got something private
for you.”

Glad to get away from my hail-fellow in petticoats, and
fearing too that Bob might blow some awful secret abroad
through his improvised speaking-trumpet, I ran down the
steps and let him take my arm. As soon as he had got a
firm grip, he dragged me away to the edge of the bluff,
wearing meanwhile a look of such tragic significance, that I
began to question whether he did not mean to make a lover's
leap of it, and dignify his male grossness with the poetic end
of Sappho. It was to be hoped, at least, that he had not
discovered in me a perfidious rival, and that he would not
insist upon my gravity to secure for himself additional
momentum.

“TI say, Fitz Hugh, I’ve overheard ’em,” he broke out,
halting at the railing. “I’ve got to the bottom of the secret.
Blast his confounded soul! I wish I dared shoot him.”

“ Dared shoot whom?”

“ Somerville—that rascally, cursed, cheating blackguard
of a Somerville!” i“

“ Good!” said I. “I wish-y@u dared. But what has he
done?” &:

“Done! I overheard him talking with Ellen—Mrs. Wes-
tervelt.”
302: SEACLIFF.

“You did! Mrs. Westervelt! Oh, you have got to the
bottom of it, then!” I exclaimed, as it occurred to me,
almost for the first time, that she: was the “ guilty woman.”.
« But, look here, Robert. This must be hushed up. For-
Heaven’s sake don’t say anything ; dow spread reports.,
Just consider that she is your own cousin.’ ;

“Oh! she’s not so much to blame, that I know of,” re-
turned Bob. “Its Somerville that I am down upon, chiefly.
Vd like to touch off a blast under him, and hoist him as high
as a shot tower.”

“Of course, —of course,— very naturally,” I assented,
“Well?” fe

“Well, I overheard them talking about her,” continued
Bob.

te ‘About her? About whom?”

“Mary! Mary Westervelt! Miss Mary Westervelt !”
reiterated Bob, enraged at my stupidity. “Of course
her.”

“Oh! That’s all, is it? I thought —— well, never
mind; go on.”

“ That’s all, is it? Well, ain’t that. enough? Guess
you'll think so, when you come to hear what it is,” retorted
Bob, indignantly. oft

“Very likely. Let us hear what it is. Go on with your
story.”

“JT will. Til bile ahead, if you'll keep off the track. You
see, Fitz Hugh, I ain’t so confounded slow always as they
take me to be. I ain’t literary nor Frenchified, but I can be
as sly sometimes as old Joey Bagstock.” (Bob really. con-
sidered Joey to be a most knowing old gentleman.) “I’ve
suspected Somerville ever since you told me to be on the
lookout for him. Well, this morning I was in the parlor,
and heard him talking to somebody in Ellen’s sitting-room.
Thinks I to myself, perhaps he’s got Mary in there and is
trying to court her. So I slipped up to the door and harked
at the keyhole. Sly, wasn’t it? Well, it was Cousin Ellen,
A RAY OF LIGHT. 803

that he was palavering to. They were having over some-
thing about papers and letters and money, that I couldn’t.
make- head nor tail of. Finally he says, Well, if that’s all
you can do, I must look out for myself, and I shall marry one
of the girls, and I shall take Mary. No, says she, for pity’s
sake take Genevieve; I think Genevieve has been interested
in you. The very reason I don’t want her, says-he. But,
says she, I think Mary cares for some one else. (That’s me,
you know.) So much the better, says Somerville ; the more
fun in getting her. ‘Well, that’s all I heard, Fitz Hugh.
T'was'so precious mad that I had to go out doors to swear.
I tell you I feel like a nest of hornets that the boys have
been. stoning. I shall let on to Cousin Ellen as soon as I
catch her alone ; and if I don’t whip Somerville before night,
it will be because he has whipped me.”

T protested against this corporeal plan of operations, on
the ground that it might break up the family, would be cer-
tain to make a vast deal of talk, and would not be at all pleas-
ing, I felt sure, to Miss Westervelt. He contradicted, ex-
claimed, argued, and swore, but finally admitted that I was
right, and promised to keep the peace.

“ Well, what shall I do then?” said he. “ For pity’s sake,

Fitz Hugh, stay here and advise a feller. Don’t go away
till Somerville does, I beg. of you. Just stick by here, old
feller, won’t you now ?—on my account !”
* On his account! As I promised him that I would remain,
I felt horribly like a hypocrite, notwithstanding my mental
reservation that it was purely and simply on my own ac-
count.

The rest of that day was chiefly spent in thinking with
rage and self-contempt of the benediction which I had pro-
nounced, a fortnight before, on Bob’s nuptial intentions. For
and against I repeatedly discussed the old question whether I
was an idiot or not, hoping meekly that it was not so, and
yet obliged to admit that it looked exceedingly probable,
inasmuch as I had suffered myself to be most simply duped

 
304 SEACLIFF.

by the flimsiest of appearances. J came to the conclusion
that the Father of Lies is the master of appearances in this
world, while Heaven confines itself to realities. Hence that
great, sorrowful truth, so notorious and so universally con-
ceded, that appearances are deceitful; and hence also that
other and blessed and sustaining truth, that facts are facts,
always have been and always will be.

 
 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIL

TWILIGHT DIALOGUES.

walking slowly to and fro with Mrs. Westervelt, be-
hind a clump of hemlocks in the most retired corner
of the Seacliff grounds.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had not exchanged a
word with him during the day, and that he had carefully
avoided my presence ever since he accidentally became a
spectator of the destruction of those villainous letters. I re-
solved that I would face him then, and see whether I could
not burn at least one blush into his cheek. It seemed more
likely that I should inflict this mild punishment upon him if
I surprised him in his confidences with Mrs. Westervelt ; and
therefore I took a circuitous route toward the hemlocks, ad-
vancing with the caution of a deerstalker, and always keep-
ing some thicket between me and my goal. I did not intend
to play peeping Tom, but to come upon them so suddenly
that they could neither have time to separate, nor to glaze
their faces into non-expression.

The only result of my stealthy march was to give a start
to Mrs. Westervelt. She had sat down desperately on the
grass, her head bent with such a weary, hopeless air, as if it
could nevermore be lifted, her left hand clutched hard upon
her knee, her right grasping one of the little hemlock
branches and beating it against the earth. Somerville had
vanished, and I could not even hear the sound of receding

A a tea, as dusk came on, I observed Somerville
806 SEACLIFF.

footsteps. As I entered the little shadowy alcove, Mrs. Wes-
tervelt rose up, looking so guilty and timorous that it seemed
as if I should only have to stand silent before her to drive
her to confession. But the moment I spoke she recovered ;
the habits of social intercourse resumed their movement; the
trained smile of the world came out on her pale lips; and
she simpered with her usual soft insipidity.. “ Dear me, Mr.
Fitz Hugh! You surprised me, really.”

“TI beg your pardon. I expected to surprise some one
else,” said I, not much caring how she understood me.

“Oh! you thought the geirls were here,” she replied, glanc-
ing about her uneasily. “It ¢s one of their favorite spots.”

I might as well talk of the girls as of anything else. The
subject was interesting at all times, and loomed up momen-
tous now that I suddenly recollected Somerville’s declared
intention of marrying one of them. I was very grave ;—I
moralized earnestly ;—I had much to say of a mother’s duty.
It was annoying to hear Mrs. Westervelt’s easy commonplace
admission of her responsibilities, and to see what a low idea
she had formed of their nature.

“QO! Iam by no means the mother to them that I ought to
be,” she sighed, as unmeaningly as the wind. “It is my duty
to see them launched properly. Really, I haven’t the strength
of mind to do it. You men, Mr. Fitz Hugh, have no idea
what a difficult and delicate job it is to manage a geirl’s
début.”

Yes, in her eyes a mother was a chaperone, a sort of mat-
rimonial agent, and nothing more.

“There is my fine old friend, Mrs. Ottoman, is a perfect
model,” she continued. “She really makes a conscience of
it, now. She has married off two of her daughters splen-
didly, and she is getting the most magnificent offers for the
third. Josephine is a great belle already, although she is
only eighteen, and there are plenty of handsomer geirls. But
her mother drills her most faithfully. Why, in New York,
last season, Josey often went to two and three balls a night
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 3807

without fading at all. Her mother used to hurry her home
from one crush, give her a cold bath and frictions, and then
drive away with her to another, and so on till daylight. And
through all this the good old lady never left her, although
she had the gout and was ready to drop. I never knew such
devotion. Dear me! Jam quite incapable of it. Now Mary
‘ought to be going through something of that sort. Isn’t it a
shame that I am so idle and careless of my duties? Now
‘don’t say a word. It is, really.”

I could not resist the vindictive temptation of letting slip
a word of bitter satire.

“You give the girls an example of the domestic virtues,
Mrs. Westervelt.”

“Do I? How you flatter, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” said she,
while the troubled, weary look settled down upon her face.
“T should like to think that you are in earnest. Well,” she
added, sadly, “I do as well as I can. I wish I could do
better.”

Then, looking up suddenly, as if fearful that she had be-
trayed her secret, she observed, “I suppose you refer to my
living so contentedly in the country. To be frank, it 7s a
trial ; but then I try to make no complaint. Mr. Westervelt
prefers to reside here, and I of course do not say a word,
‘although I am sometimes positively dying for a good New
York crush. You can’t imagine how I enjoy dancing, Mr.
Fitz Hugh,” she continued, her face lighting up at the idea,
and her foot patting the earth as if about starting off in a
polka. “Oh, polking and waltzing! ta ra la, ta ra la; it’s
delicious, it’s heavenly! But my fancy dances were over, you
now, on the day that I married. It is a positive fact that
I have done nothing but quadrilles and lancers ever since.
"That is leading an innocent life, isn’t it? ha ha ha.”

“The thought of it must be a great consolation to you,”
I said, hardly trying to cover my irony with a smile.

“Do you know,” she observed presently, “I wish now that
I had cultivated a taste for reading, when I was at school.
308 SEACLIFF.

I shall always blame Madame Duval severely for not teach-
ing me that. I can’t read, I declare! And yet at school I
used to write pretty good compositions. They made me do
them, you know. I was drilled at it till I actually hated the
sight of pens and paper. My only consolation for it was
billets doux. Ob, the number of love-letters that we silly
girls used to get up at Madame Duval’s, and throw out to
the fellows! Sometimes it seems to me that I could write
an amusing book about those days. But reading is another
thing. Your book there is the only one that I have read
clear: through, for a long while. The funny parts, and what
you say about the fétes, and the courts, and the balls, and the
nobility,—all that is delicious. But I can’t understand how
you can admire scenery and sunsets so much. Now sunsets
tire me; that is, I can’t bear to have people drag me off to
look at them; of course I don’t object to the sun’s setting,
ha haha! It would be useless, I suppose, if I did.”

Was it not too bad that such a simpleton could make sen-
sible people wretched? But so it is: the weakest can pile
mountains of misery; the stupidest have ingenuity enough
to destroy. Yet as I looked at the unhappy woman, I felt
more pity for her than disgust or anger. What should I
myself have been ere this if circumstances had enabled or
forced me to live out my full nature? Many a man walks
through life surrounded by loving faces and blest with the
approbation of even those who do not know him, simply
because but a part of his inward being has been called to
act outwardly. Many a man brags of his virtues, who only
has a right to be thankful for his exemption from tempta-
tion. The wise man admits that below all his fair daily
life there is a dark abyss, which he himself cannot fath-
om, and which he humbly prays may not be made manifest,
nor allowed to overbrim in deeds. He never looks into it
but that he trembles at the wicked capabilities that he sees
there; trembles to think how easily he might become an en-
emy of society, an infidel, a libertine, a murderer. Accord-
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 309

ingly, as I stood gazing at Mrs. Westervelt, I had no desire
to cast the first stone at her.

I understood now what it was that had made me study
that insipidly pleasing face so often. I saw the meaning of
that heavy-burdened air of her quiet moments, which alter-
nated so strangely with her somewhat hoydenish gayety
when excited by a sudden overcoming pleasure, and con-
trasted so utterly with her youthful reputation as a frivolous
fashionable belle. I-called up, as well as I could, her days
of frolic, and remembered, as I thought, that they had oc-
curred mostly in the absences of Somerville. Once or twice
she. had made me the confidant of some vague sorrow. She
was melancholy; she did not care to live long; it was a
world of disappointments: a few low-spirited commonplaces,
in short; just such things as one hears from a romantic
school miss. At the same time she nervously added that she
had no particular cause of unhappiness; her husband was
perfect, and the children (dear geirls!) were beautiful and
amiable ; she had a great many friends, and country life was
delightful.

Now I comprehended it all. But had any other person
sounded the mystery? Mr. Westervelt_may have suspected
some evil thing, for I had often seen him eye Somerville with
timid doubt and dislike; but he could not have known what
I knew, or he would not -have suffered this man nor this
woman to remain under his roof. Absorbed in business and
frequently away from home, he was necessarily purblind to
much that passed in his family. Correct in life, passionless
in temperament, and no longer young, he would not readily
accuse others of falling before a temptation which to him was
no temptation. No, he knew nothing, and I dared tell him
nothing.

Mary Westervelt? If she was aware of the secret, she
had never betrayed her knowledge. I had seen her, some-
times sad, sometimes watchful, but never so much so as to
excite suspicion in one who did not already suspect. Ifthe
310 SEACLIFF.

household phantom haunted her, she was a brave girl who
could look upon it without letting others doubt that she saw
it, or saw anything which they did not.

Genevieve? Ah, this child had either seen more, or was
less: capable of self-repression. That she was not altogether
ungonscious of the presence of the spectre appeared, I now
thought, in her sullen fits, her sarcasms, and all the desultory-
warfare which she had carried on with the peace of the
family. I felt that I must forgive her for that happy faculty,
—curiosa. felicitas,—which she had shown in making her best:
friends unhappy, and which, without such cause, would. have.
stamped hers as a vulgar nature. She possessed a trifle of .
her grandfather’s unpleasant talent for hating ; but she had
certainly found an object which made its exercise almost a
Christian duty. There was something cunning and prudent,
too, in her. Once, when her father ventured very meekly to
reprove her spirit of contradiction, she made a reply which
must have been but a clever blind to her real feelings.

“TJ -know it-is wrong to be snappish, papa. But I can’t
help thinking that this would be an awfully stupid world if
we all thought alike and acted alike. There would be no
excitement,—nothing to talk about. We should be yawning
from morning till ‘night. One would get fearfully tired of
staying here. Death would be welcome, suicide common.
Don’t you think so, papa?”

The Van Leers and Hunter? Imbeciles all, after differ-.
ent manners. They saw nothing, probably; and if they did,
so much the worse.

I thought them all over while Mrs. Westervelt talked, and:
then I went back to the mystery itself. It reminded me
of that brazen bottle in the Arabian Nights, out of which
ascended a smoke that spread until it became a great cloud,
and then slowly gathered into the form of a monstrous and
menacing Afreet. Gradually it had arisen from the family
life before my eyes, at first uncertain and almost ludicrous in
seeming, but daily taking shape and becoming more threaten-
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 311

ing, until at last it was a sure and defined horror. It had
thus far, indeed, wrought no visible results, and for a time
longer it might continue dumb and deedless; but it was ever
present, stalking darkly behind the other events of our exist-
ence like a ghost treading in the steps of living men; and
some day, any day, refusing longer to follow us, it might turn
and beckon some of us to follow 7¢ through lives of shame to
graves of sorrow.

I had scarcely got clear of Mrs. Westervelt when I fell in
with Hunter, smoking along the garden, and glancing at the
stars with the air of one who knows that he outshines them
all. |

“Can you tell me where Somerville is?” I inquired.

“Tam sorry to say not, my dear fellah. I was just look-
ing for our Admirable Crichton, myself. I wanted one more
hour with that brilliant intellect. Iam off to-morrow, Fitz
Hugh. That blue-stockinged Calypso, Alma Mater, calls me
once more to her venerable bosom. I assure you, sir, that
I almost regret it. I shall miss these charmed hours,—your
company, my friend,—my cousins,—my sister. But more
than all,—I trust that you will neither be annoyed nor sur-
prised: at it,—I shall miss Somerville. What a mind!
Copious and shining.as a great river under the cloudless sun
of the tropics! Colossal and precious as the gold and ivory
Jupiter of Phidias!} Then, too, the simple and common
sense observations, the instructive experiences, which he can
mingle with his loftier converse! Why, let me give you an
idea of his tact and cleverness, Fitz Hugh. I was talking to
him the other day about those matrimonial engagements that
I had got into with certain damsels who live within easy walk
of our classic sanctuary. Says I, ‘I wonder you never got
caught that way, old fellah.” (Hunter never did call him ‘old
fellah ;’ always addressed him reverentially, if not flatter-
ingly.) “ Well, upon that, he admitted that he hadn’t always
escaped the girls. He got lasso’d once; it’s a solemn fact,
I pledge my word; and then he wanted to get away. The.
312 SEACLIFF.

trick that he hit upon was the cleverest thing that I ever
heard of; a perfect stroke of genius, I assure you; try it
myself as soon as I get back to college. He was staying at
Saratoga in the same hotel with the girl and her father.
Well, sir, he just got beastly drunk in the street, and had to
be carried to his room by the porters. The girl cried and
wanted to forgive him; but papa wouldn’t stand it, and the
engagement was a flunk. Says I, ‘Somerville, give me your
hand, old fellah; I owe you a box of cigars for that idea.’” ;

Will the reader please to remember that in a previous.
interview Hunter claimed this swinish trick, so unlike the
style of Somerville, as his own conception.

“ Keep owing it; don’t pay it,’ I counselled. “ The
lesson isn’t worth the box ; much less the long nines.”

“Don’t agree with you, Fitz Hugh,” responded Hunter.
“Tf you were harnessed in with the women as I am at >
you would see the thing as I do, and be glad of learning how.
to kick out of the traces, unless you are more of a Fresh
than I take you to be.”

“It’s lucky that you are going away, Hunter,” said I.:
“You pretend to be an awfully wicked person; but I am
afraid that Somerville really is one. Your moral education:
is in bad hands here, my young innocent.”

“Now look here, Fitz Hugh,” he exclaimed, walking up
and down jauntily, after his usual fashion when the inspira-
tion of balderdash came upon him, “TI shall pass over your
slur at my sincerity, not because it is just, but because I am
magnanimous. But I cannot allow you to live and die in the
mistaken supposition that savotr vivre is wickedness. Somer-
ville, sir, knows life ; he is an incomparable analyst of society ;-
he is a man of the world in the largest sense of that large’
phrase ; he has studied his specialty with a subtlety and’
originality which give him claim to the word Genius! Asa
discoverer of truths I consider him superior to Humboldt.
His field of research is nobler; he has to do, not with matter
but mind; not with physical truths but moral truths.”

 
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 313

“Immoral,” I suggested, as Hunter stopped to send a
breath of life through his dying cigar.

“Well; immoral, if you please; but truths at all events,
and practical ones. I have learned far more from his con-
versation than from all the lectures of all the professors of
Alma Mater.”

“ Don’t I know it?” said I. 3 i

“ Quit that. Fitz Hugh. I shall seidhate yet. Besides,
it was ‘the slough of rum and water. which arrested my
progress, and not the stumbling-stones of the hill of science.
But let us return to our muttons. What are Latin and
Greek worth to me, practically, compared with a knowledge
of men and manners? Yes, women and manners, by Jove!
Somerville teaches me living life. The professors teach me
dead life, or rather the dead tongues of dead life. The only
result of this species of much learning is to make me mad.:
I swear, I never see a bust of Cicero but what I want to
knock his old Roman nose off. Catiline and Messalina be
hanged! What I want to know is how to rule the bad men
and manage the naughty women of the present day. You
can’t deny that Somerville knows women. He has analyzed
the sex all through its varieties, from ugliness to beauty,
from juicy sixteen to the dryness of old maidenhood. On
this subject, Fitz Hugh, I have réceived lessons of gold from
Somerville.” :

“TJ can guess what they are. But where is the value of
them? What practical use can you put them to, that will not
subject you to contempt and remorse ? ”

“ Contempt and remorse!” scoffed Hunter, setting about
as if bearing mountains of both without the least incon-.
‘venience, and quite forgetful of the anguish which the gossips!
of Rockford had lately caused him. “Contempt is a chimera,
my friend, which only exists to the coward. As for remorse, ,
that is insanity or indigestion. Not even a murderer suffers .
remorse as long as his mind and body are in a healthy state.
I am quoting Somerville, by the way. Give me credit for.a

4
314 SEACLIFF.

soul above plagiarism.—Well, old Time is still a flying, and
I must: not trifle with his. venerated pinions. I must have
one more talk with Somerville, and then pack my trunk.
See you again to-morrow, before I leave.” ¢

It is distinctly visible, I suppose, that Hunter was afflicted
with moral blockheadism. Perhaps it is a disease common
to adolescence ; perhaps some of the conditions of college life
tend to develope it with unusual vigor; but Hunter would
have been pretty nearly such as he was, no matter what his,
age or surroundings. He was delighted to get back to. his
class, notwithstanding Cicero'and Catiline. The ludicrous
disgrace of the Capers’ adventure had driven him from his;
haunts in Rockford ; and he was ill at ease at Seacliff, where
the Westervelts of late turned to him a cold shoulder. -They
must have heard of his lies about the young ladies, and. the
only wonder was that they did not resent them still more
sternly. Thus he fizzed out from among us quietly, like a
Chinese cracker lighted at the wrong end; so quietly that
I was disappointed, for I had expected to see such an odd
firework go off with some notable explosion. What his
social scintillations were at will doubtless be known
when the history of college beaux and college belles comes.
to be written.

To me Somerville never talked himself out freely, as he:
did to Hunter, if we may believe that mendacious creature;
therefore it is that I so seldom relate his agreeable conver-
sations, for I am puzzled how to report him without convey-
ing a false impression of him. Do you remember the aston-.
ishment of a famous ornithologist, when, after finding bird
after bird slaughtered in his aviary, he at last discovered that
his sweetest songster, the mocking-bird, was the assassin ?
He would hardly believe that the same bill could chant so-
mellowly and tear so murderously. No, there was nothing
characteristic in Somerville’s words; they were like the re-
flections of stars in a quiet lake; they expressed what was
outward and foreign, not what was inward and native.

 
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 315.

I ceased my pursuit of the man when I came upon Miss
Westervelt sitting alone in the veranda.

“Have you seen him?” I asked, not so much because I
still wished to find him as for the sake of commencing a con-.
versation.

“Who? Mr. Somerville? Not since tea. But I hope
that you are not going to speak to him about those letters.”

“You think I had best not, then? Well, 1 believe it is
my: own opinion, also. In fact the interest that I take in my
unknown traducer amounts to nothing more than a little ven--
omous curiosity. The subject is a squeamishly nice one to
approach, and I suppose that the better way.is to keep hands
off it.”

In truth the anonymous assaults upon my character seemed
to me a mere trifle, almost a joke, compared with the other
doings of the evil one who troubled Seacliff.

“ But how can it be possible! How could: he do such a
mean thing when he appears. to be so refined and noble!”
she said presently. “ His manner is always gentlemanly.”

“ A mere frozen surface, Miss Westervelt. It has no more
union with his real self than the ice on a river has with the
eurrent beneath ; it is not governed by the same laws, doesn’t
move with it, nor show its direction. I suppose that we are
all of us more or less skinned over ;—I suppose that we
never exhibit ourselves thoroughly except in some freshet of
excitement. But I never saw any other person so smoothly
and solidly congealed as Somerville. He beats the very ani-
mals. No fox ever formed such a surface; no cat was ever
so shod with velvet. I.wish that he would forget his mask
just for once, so that we could really see him.”

She looked up at me earnestly as if she were about to
make some frank avowal; to utter, perhaps, her true judg-
ment of Somerville, or even to speak out concerning the mys-
tery.-- Then a suggestion of prudence, or a start of womauly.
timidity checked her, and her eyes wandered while she answer-
ed me as if she were seeking words far away from her heart.
316 SEACLIFF.

“Tt is a dazzling quality,—this fine varnish—this enamel
of character,” she said. “It is almost worth one’s ehvy-. Of
course it is not a virtue; and’ yet it sometimes does the work
of’ a virtue.” ua

“JT don’t give much rota or intellectual credit to Somer-
ville ‘for possessing it,” returned’ I; unable to bear a word
which seemed to favor the man. “He could hardly help it ;
it came to him by the accident of birth and breeding ;- he in-
herited it from his parents, and sen it from his earliest
intimates.” °

“You give him no kind of credit,” she observed, meaty to
smile, as if she did not know that our conversation was a
painfully serious one. , :

“Yes I do ;—I give him credit for a miracle. It is impos-
sible to get two men into one skin; to unite the soul of a
finished rascal with the bearing of a finished gentleman ; but
it seems to me that he has done it. In public he is the
blandest and gentlest of creatures, whose mere demeanor is
soothing, whose voice mellows. yours as he spedks to you, who
hurts no one and nothing, not even-vanity. But in secret,—
oh, depend upon it.that his only.earnest words and deeds are
in secret. Elegant breeding sends the whole of a man’s
cream to the: surface ; a so much the worse for what is-be-
low; I mean in this case.” 1

She grew sad and silent over the ee ad I presently
dropped it for fear of annoying her. There was another on
which I could have talked quite as fluently and passionately
if I had dared, and that was the state of my feelings. toward
herself. "When I was at Naples, standing in one of the halls
of the gigantic Museo Borbonico, I saw an English girl of
about eighteen, staid, quaint, and Jane Eyreish in aspect, step
up to an antique copy of that beautiful boy-bust known as
the Young Augustus, kiss its forehead, and then walk quietly
away without glancing around her to see whether or not that
strange action had been noticed by the loiterers whose foot-
steps echoed down the long galleries. Just so would I have
TWILIGHT DIALOGUES. 317

been glad to do by Miss Westervelt during the week which
followed my discovery of her in that fatal dress of autumn
colors.. Could I have found her asleep, so that, I might, un-
seen, have dropped a kiss, unfelt, upon that fair forehead, I
would have done it, and then left her forever, nor thought of
her more except as so much marble. So it seemed, at least ;
although so it probably would not have been. But now all
that was over: she was nota cold bust ‘in one of memory’s
coldest galleries ; she was as near, as human, as womanly, as
when she. thanked me for saving her life. Fe

_ Who has not felt at times that a single word or incident
has changed him forever, so that, whether for better or worse,
he can never more be the man that he has been? And yet
only a week has gone by, or perhaps not so much, when he
finds that the primal familiar nature has risen from the flood
of strange emotion that had submerged it seemingly for all
time. Humanity is somewhat like the face of an india-rubber
doll : you may pinch and pull it into the most grotesque grim-
aces ; but remove the pressure, and lo the old Adam! My
“suspicions of Miss Westervelt and my flirtation with Mrs.
Van Leer had distorted me from my usual nature for a few
days, and then had passed suddenly away, leaving no impress
nor sign upon me. I cared as much for the first, and as little
for the last, as I had done a fortnight before.

“You will promise me a favor ?” she asked as I rose to
leave her.

“ But what is it,” I returned, although I knew perfectly
well that I should promise, whatever it might be.

“You will not speak to Mr. Somerville about those let-
ters?” :

“Do you wish him so well?” inquired I, curious to learn
her reasons for the request.

“No. But why should I wish you any ill? If you should
charge him with it, and there should be a difficulty, I should
always blame myself as the cause. Perhaps I ought not to
have shown them to you.” . —
318 . : SEACLIFF.

“T promise,” said I, delightfully flattered with the idea
that she was anxious on my account. “ And now a favor in
return. J want you to distrust this man; yes, I want-you to
detest him.”
“ How earnest you are!” she replied, half smiling. “It
is hard work to hate people. I am afraid that I shall do it
in this case, however ; that is, unless ”
“I beg your pardon,” said a mellow voice behind us.
“ Excuse me, Miss Westervelt, for interrupting you; but I
thought that you were’ about to say something meant for Mr.
Fitz Hugh alone.”
' She bowed, colored, smiled faintly, and hastened into the
house without speaking.

-“ Good-night, Mr. Somerville,” I muttered, turning home-
ward. “

“So early, Fitz Hugh? Good-night, then,” he answered
in his friendliest manner. ,

How much had he heard? Iam sure that I did not care.
I only wished that he would quarrel with me.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIII.
REJECTED ADDRESSES.

ALLING at Seacliff next morning, I found Somer-

ville, but not alone. There was no guilt, no shame,

ad no anger in his eyes as they met mine, but only a

awit flash of inquiry, which softened instantly to a look of
friendly recognition and interest.

“We were talking of American society, Mr. Fitz Hugh,”
said he. “I was just observing that the great fault of our
national character is not so much downright vice as incom-
pleteness. The fruit is not rotten, it is only green.”

“T think,” observed I, “that the worst possible man is a
green American who has got rotten in Europe.”

My sarcasm, angrily as I had flung it, did not enter him,
but skimmed the shining surface of his self-possession, as a
pebble skims ice, without rippling the current below.

“J quite agree with you,” he blandly answered. “ A crea-
ture who is at once coarse and corrupt, is thoroughly useless
to humanity, not to say injurious. A gentleman in manners,
on the contrary, no matter how vicious, is a civilizer. He
teaches ‘people to be clean, to be tasteful, to speak good
grammar, to avoid indecorums, and so on. An importation
of Chesterfields or even of Brummels, would be an immense
benefit to our society of hoydens and counter-jumpers.”

His proposition was startling, but to some extent correct.
His own influence at Seacliff was what he had just described,
eminently civilizing. Much as some of us disliked him,
320 ' SRACLIFF.

much as all of us may have suspected him, a silent impulse
emanated from his walk and conversation, which refined us
externally, and made us seem, like him, better than we were.
Tn consequence of him Cousin Jule was less hoydenish than
her nature, the Van Leers less boorish, and Hunter less con-
ceitedly pert. Great is -urbanity, great is decorum, and al-
most worthy of being ‘classed among the moralities.

Let us not, however, accord Somerville too much “admira-
‘tion for his philosophy, considering that we had read it all,
ten days before, and doubtless he also, in an editorial of the
New York Censor. Behold another peculiarity of this in-
genious, this elaborate man of society. He quoted without
quotation marks, and made use of an author while cruelly
denying him an existence. His conversation was infused
with all the literary ideas of the day ; his dinner-table efforts
smacked of poems, novels, histories, dailies, monthlies, quar-
terlies, encyclopedias; and yet he constantly admitted and
lamented that he was no reader, thereby gaining vast reputa-
tion among unbooked people, for originality and fecundity of
thought. How often have I enjoyed a malicious pleasure in
hearing the maxims of Rochefoucauld and the jokes of Vol-
taire fall from his artless lips! He was a brilliant man,
however, notwithstanding that he was such a sham; and you
could not really despise him, even itee you had discovered
all his tricks.

“T- doubt’ whether we shall ever have a truly elegant
society in our republic,” he continued. “Caste is impossible
in a country which does not admit of eldest sons; and you
can no more have gentility without caste, than you can have
music without a scale.”

“Oh, but we have caste, Mr. Somerville,” observed Mrs.
Van Leer, ‘rustling her patrician silks. “I am sure the
grades of New York society are ve—ry distinctly se
Don’t you think Fifth Avenue aristocratic ?”

‘“ Whenever Mrs. Van Leer walks there,” bowed ae
ville, with a smile of jest strongly infused with flattery.
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 821

The lady bridled, wriggled, and simpered her gratitude.
“But it is so amusing sometimes to get among people of an-
other set,” she added with a giggle.

“Do you mean a lower set ?” inquired I, maliciously.

_ “Of course!” she replied, frowning at the hint that there
_could be a higher one than her own. “I mean or—dinary
sort of people, you know. How ve—ry divert—ing to watch
th em! 1»

“ Exactly,” sneered Genevieve ; “to see them in all their
‘diversity of form and color; such monstrous, unnatural, out-
landish creatures; things with three legs—four—ten—per-
fect centipedes ; women with heads under their arms; men
-who bow-wow instead of talking; that’s the kind you mean,
isn’t it, Cousin Jule? Precisely; ordinary sort of folks;
people who are not of our set.”

Genevieve was born an iconoclast, and delighted in grind-
ing golden calves to powder. Wherever she found an altar
of vanity, no matter in whose heart erected, or to what
mighty name inscribed, she fell to upsetting it with an
energy which was only redoubled by the anguish and the
pious resistance of its votary. The sentiment was partly, no
doubt, an honest indignation -at shams, but partly too, I fear,
pugnacity and pleasure in satire. Fortunate for the interests
of truth is it that such natures are born into the world; but
it must be confessed that they are not the most agreeable
persons to have always about one; that they seem far bet-
ter adapted to converting obstinate cannibals than to making
civilized people happy. There are times when even opti-
mists and perfectionists are tempted to believe that humanity
is, to say the least, badly assorted. One relative, one inti-
mate, brings constant supplies.of peace and joy to your soul,
while another is a blessing to you only when you consider
him or her in the light of a reproving and humbling judg-
ment. For my part, I am not one of those who rejoice in
such godsends. Left to myself, I would accept the risk of
dispensing with them, and would cheerfully see them be-

4%
822 SEACLIFF.

stowed.on the ends. of the earth and the isles of the.sea.
Often have I wished of some of my unconquerable friends,
that they would take a fancy to New Zealand or the Mar-
quesas; wished it, I am not ashamed to say, less for the
spiritual good of the tattooed populations than for. my own
temporal comfort. Besides, their presence would be relished
there, and cannibaldom would prosper on their good. quali-
ties. In fact, it would afford me a sneaking kind of: pleas-
ure to hear of several excellent persons whom I can’t bear,
that they had come as near as possible to being entertainment
for man and beast; and even supposing them actually served
up for a roast or a chowder, I am afraid that I could hardly
bring myself to dissent from the universal New Zealand ¥ ver-
dict of, Served them right.

Somerville answered Genevieve in a way that was ag
acteristic of him. “It is hopeless,” said he, with a sigh and
a smile; “we shall never have an aristocracy ; the very
persons who should constitute it ridicule it.”

No thanks, not even a look, did he get for his compliment.
Genevieve only pouted her lips and gave a vindictive toss to
her handsome. head, as she muttered, “ The very. persons
who should constitute it, disgrace it.”

“You ought to pardon a fallen adversary,” said Somer-
ville, with a quizzical affectation of humility.

“Not necessarily. The devil is a fallen adversary. We
are not bound to pardon him, I suppose.”

“Why, Genevieve! you are awfully personal,” laughed
Mrs. Van Leer. “ You ought to have said that you didn’t.
refer to Mr. Ronee, instead of going on to make odious
comparisons.”

“J am not at all personal,” retorted the satirist. “It is
not personality to throw a fools-cap on the floor. Nobody is
obliged to pick it up.” :

“ No, it is not personality ; it is legitimate satire,” observed
Somerville, blandly. “Miss Genevieve deserves commen-
dation for the make up of her fools-caps, and the. ease
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 323

with which she pitches them out. I admire them so much
that I. should be. only too proud to find one that fitted
me.”

He had not once put up the calm smile that’ he wore as a
vizor, nor shown in any way that he seriously took her sar-
casms as referring to himself. She looked as if she could
‘ery with rage at the failure of her attack; but his smooth
impudence had beaten her, and she said nothing more to
him: -

* Jenny, you are cut out for an old maid,” observed Cousin
Jule. “I never knew a satirical girl that had an offer.”

“Well, what matter?” replied Genevieve, with a forced
gayety which did not hide how much she had been badgered.
“T suppose that most girls would rather die young than be
old maids. It is different with me. I would rather be an
old maid than take a man I did not want. No, it is not
‘exactly that, either. I would rather die young than not
have the man of my choice.”

“T am sure it will not be the fault of our sex if you meet
with an early death,” said Somerville, bowing in the very
humility of gallantry.

At this compliment Genevieve was furiously provoked,
although speechlessly. It would have been laughable to see
her eyes sparkle so, had I not known all the while that she
was raging at the spectral presence of the family mystery.

Presently Mrs. Westervelt looked into the room and beck-
oned to Jenny. “Come, dear,” said she. “Come, Robert.
Mr. Fitz Hugh, excuse us; we have an errand to do, You
will join us afterwards in boating, I hope.”

Genevieve and Robert followed her; and we heard car-
riage wheels roll away.

Somerville turned to Miss Westervelt and began to prate
pictures, a subject for which she had a passion, and with which
‘accordingly he often angled for her attention.

One secret of this man’s social success: was, that he had a
cameleon-like mind, and could suit his tastes to his company.
324 SEACLIFF.

He talked dress with Mrs. Westervelt, stocks with her hus-
band, coquetry with Cousin Jule, fishing and horses with the
Van Leer brothers, books with me, and handled each subject
‘cleverly, tastefully, and, to all appearance, zestfully. He
could throw himself into the idiosyncrasy of each of us with
a power which was seemingly greater than that of his inter-
locutor, and so could delight and influence us easily, at least
until we had learned to fathom and hate*him. This adapta-
bility is a wonderful means to popularity, and its superficial
gilt passes better in society than the solid ore.of. real genius.
Had I known Somerville when I was several years’ younger,
I should probably have been completely fascinated by him ;
and so in truth I might have been as it was, had he not come
across my path as a rival and an enemy.. No genius, I say
‘again, but. a creature of extraordinary talents, who, had he
been moved by a noble ambition, ee have achieved oe
honors and wide respect.

While he talked to Miss Westervelt, and I speculaied 3 in
silence whether he had overheard our last evening’s conver-
sation concerning him, and whether he would try to punish
us for it, Mrs. Van Leer, finding herself neglected, fretted
like a lapdog which is not caressed to its liking. She went
out and came in again; took up a book and pretended to
read ; threw it down and pouted undisguisedly.

“Come, Mr. Fitz Hugh, let us quit these zsthetic people,”
she said at last. “I vote that you and I take a prosaic stroll
in the garden. I don’t feel myself fit company for persons
who talk blank verse.”

“No no, Cousin Jule! stay here,” commanded Mary. “I
don’t approve this pairing off If you go, I shall go with
you.”

“Quitting Somerville in the middle of a sentence, she came
across the room, sewing-work in hand, and took an ottoman
between Mrs. Van Leer and myself. There was nothing in
the man’s face Which showed that he felt vexed at the slight,
or that it reminded him of any promise which had been made
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 825

to distrust and detest him. His eye fellowed her tranquilly,
and then he addressed Mrs. Van Leer with a smile of amia-
ble badinage.

“ Miss Westervelt has deprived Mr. Fitz Hugh of a great
pleasure.”

..“ Do you hear that?” Janghed the gay lady. “Mr. Som-

‘geelle has a proper appreciation of my society. Do you
understand, Mr. Fitz Hugh?”

I looked non-comprehension with all my might,

. * Why, what a short mem—ory you have!” she continued.
“T’m sure that I heard a lady propose to you only a minute
ago, to take a walk with her in the gar—den.”

“Indeed!” said I. .“ Well, I think I must have declined
on account of the heat. What other reason could there be ?”

“Oh! oh!” she replied in a pet. “ How very thoughtful
of your complex—ion! Well, perhaps you were not invited
after all; in fact, I don’t think you were, except merely to see
if you had any gallantry. It is perfectly aw—ful to see how
the gallantry of an American gentleman dies away if -he once
visits Europe. Mr. Somerville is only an excep—tion to the
rule. There is Robert, now, who has never been out of
America, has ten times the devotion of Mr. Fitz Hugh.
Don’t you think so, Mary? Don’t you think he is a model
of fidelity, self-sacrifice, and all that sort of thing? You
ought to acknowledge it, of all persons. Come, do speak,

and give the poor boy his dues.”

Miss Westervelt colored deeply, tried to cover her embar-
rassment by laughing, and stammered out, “ How can you,

Jule! He is not a Bayard, but he is a kind, good-hearted
cousin. You ought to be ashamed if you are laughing at
him.”

“T am not laugh—ing at him. I admire him. Such a
faith—ful, whole-souled fellow! I wish J had a cavalier as
devo—ted.”

“So you have, Jule,” said Mary, half reproachfully. “You
have your husband, who is every whit as good as Robert.”
326 SEACLIFF.

*QOh!. I. for—got-that I was married,” replied ” ‘the co-
-quette. “Exact—ly ! Henry is a good fellow, too. I ought
to look him up now.”

“Tf you want to know where he is,” said I mischievously,
“he is in the garden. ‘You will find him under the lilacs.”

She gave me a glance of meneneny and marched oe
out of, the room. 2

Somerville caught her parting look, and came over to me
with a face of mock expostulation so varnished with- smiles
that you could hardly see its insolence. 2

“My dear Mr. Fitz Hugh !—excuse me if I remonstrate.”

“What is the matter?” said I, with a poor affectation of
not perceiving his meaning. *

“ First, allow.me to congratulate you on your belle - fortune,”
he continued, pretending to speak low, but making himself
plainly audible to Miss Westervelt.

“JT don’t understand you,” said I, trying in my desperation
-to browbeat him into silence with a wrathful stare.

: “ But it isa very great pity that she is married,” he per-
sisted, still smiling.—“ Married, if not mated.” _

“TI don’t see, sir—the point—what does this mean, Mr.
Somerville?” I answered, stammering as a young fellow is
apt to do when he is choked by a guilty conscience. “Do
you allude to Mrs.. Van. Leer ?”.-

“To Mrs. Van Leer?” he repeated with a momentary
show of his teeth. “Oh! perhaps we have made a discovery.

-Is that the way your conscience points? But, really,” (in a
wicked whisper,) “have you thought of her husband? ”

Miss Westervelt, whose face was burning red by this time,
suddenly started up as if about to leave the room. A second
thought checked her; perhaps she feared that if left to our-
selves we would come to blows; she -stepped to the window
and gazed steadily out of it, with the air of being far away
from a conversation, which to her was an insult. I rose also,
and turned my back on Somerville, knowing full well that if
I looked him in the face I should strike him. Yet my anger
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 327

was almost confounded by my amazement; for, while such a
coarse and brutal attack was stupefying enough in itself, it
was doubly so coming from a man who had hitherto been our
great exemplar of courtesy, and between whom and myself
there had been no quarrel, nor even any ground of quarrel
which might be uttered. He had not. insulted me, I knew,
in awkwardness, or in a sudden flurry of passion, but as con-
sciously and deliberately as if he had taken a wager to do it.
Let me render him full justice while I am about it. I have
no doubt that it grated on his gentlemanly feelings to utter
such questionable innuendoes in the presence of a modest girl,
and- that he would have avoided them if he could have
gained his ends otherwise. But. necessity is‘a hard master,
and even a Somerville must sometimes make his better na-
ture-bend to it. After glancing at his unfinished plans, and
weighing nicely every probability: which would go to make
or moil them, he.felt himself forced to attack my character be-
fore Miss Westervelt, and he did it with regret and a smile.
What he had said would have. been nothing to a good
-eonscience, sound in wind and limb; but mine, alas! had
shaky knees, and could hardly stand up against an insinuation
weighted with the name of: Mrs. Van Leer. With what an
enraged repentance I cursed all my silly flirtation with that
- woman, and how virtuously I resolved to avoid in future even
the appearance of evil!

It was Bob Van Leer who broke that moment of insup-
portable silence; and I blessed him for the interruption,
little thinking that I should soon be tempted to trump my
benison with a malediction.

“ Hullo! Somerville!” he roared, from somewhere out by
the garden gate. “I say, Somerville! Tome along: The
ladies are down to the boat waiting for you,”

“ Excuse me,” said our Chesterfield. “Mr. Van Lew and
I are to do the rowing. You go, I believe, Miss Westervelt.”

“T have a headache,” she vephied, without ike at him.
“a Tell them not to. wait for me.” - ;
328. SEACLIFF.

He walked out while I was hesitating whether I should
murder him immediately or on some subsequent occasion.
Then words, which I could not perhaps have spoken, trem-
bled in my throat, and I turned to Miss Westervelt. almost
resolved to plead my case boldly with her, and to pray that
she would not condemn me out of the mouth of Somerville.
But I had no time to address her, for Bob suddenly loomed
in one of the windows opening on the veranda, a blush as
big as a bonfire blazing up on his broad cheek, as he put
his head between the curtains, stared earnestly at my com-
panion, surveyed every corner of the room with irresolute
troubled eyes, and finally set to winking at me nervously.
Puzzled and somewhat startled by these evidences of ex-
traordinary excitement, I hurried out and asked him what he
meant.

“T say, old feller,” he whispered, “the ride has done me
good. I think I’ve got my courage up. I’m going to pop
the question. You just clear out and give me a chance.”

He marched directly into the house, turning upon me as
he stumbled through the doorway, a face of woful anxiety
which must have been like a reflection of my own. “There
was no help for it, no decent way of stopping him ; and so
I hurried homeward, feeling myself to be one of the most
miserable idiots alive. Was ever a man placed in a situa-
tion so wretched and yet so ludicrous? Here I was, getting
away from Seacliff as fast.as I decorously could, whistling
loudly to show that I was going, and all that a fellow, whose
witlessness I daily laughed over, might have a chance to rob
me of my supremest idol. I reached Pa Treat’s after what
seemed like a fortnight’s march, walked up stairs on my
head for aught I know, entered my room, locked the door,
drew a chair to the window, bestrode it, looked out moodily
on the Sound, thought of the gay old world which I had
left beyond those waves, and resolved that, if dollars won
the day, Europe should soon welcome me back. Then my
mind wandered up to Seacliff, and peered in upon Bob as
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 829

he made his offer. Now he is talking love, I muttered; now
he is taking her trembling hand in his; now the idiot is,
perhaps, going on his clumsy knees; now she blushes and
seems for a moment to refuse him; now she turns pale and
whispers a word which drives me crazy ; now he springs to
his feet and—I spring to mine, knocking the chair over. On
that chair, and by that window, I passed what the French
call “a bad quarter of an hour.”

“Dinner-time came, and, to save appearances, I tried to
eat and talk as usual. Then I returned to my room and
smoked several cigars in quick succession, without noticing
how many, until I saw the stumps lying all together on the
table. Finally, hearing Johnny Treat’s short-winded foot-
steps thumping up the stairway, I rushed into the passage to
seek distraction in the society of that small sinner, whosé
character for total depravity would of course render him
particularly congenial to my feelings at such a moment.
Seriously, I was in a state of mind which rendered me just
fit to tag after Johnny Treat.

“Where are you going, Johnny?” I asked.

“Goin up garret,” responded the urchin, with his usual
solemn brevity, so proper for an infant loaded with his spirit-
ual responsibilities and terrors.

“Til go up with you,” said I; and we gravely mounted
together. :

The garret was a favorite resort of Johnny’s, and no de-
spised place of recreation with myself. In regard to climate
it was an epitome of the vast and various world we live in,
being as hot in summer as the torrid zone, and as frigid in
winter-as the polar circle. Winds it had of its own, and
rains and snows too; for the leaky old roof let in copious
samples of the elements. Every time that a storm burst
along our shore Ma Treat rushed up garret and stationed
there a garrison of pails and milkpans, into which the big
drops pattered fluently with a sort of juicy tinkle. There
was always a powerful odor of rats about the apartment,
330 SEACLIFF. .

which must have made it pleasant to a grimalkin; and by
night a four-footed clamor broke out there, which made me
dream that I was in Noah’s ark, and had a state-room under
the vermin deck. Whether these attic wits acted charades,
or had fancy: balls, or played ten-pins with the corn-cobs, or
set the old trumpery in the corners, to rights, or snowballed
each other with bits. of plaster, I cannot say, but-the; noise
sounded like a little of everything as I lay in my bedroom
below, By day all these energetic workers and revellers
were as quiet as ghosts, except an occasional gallop-behind
the laths, or a squeaking oath at intruders delivered shrongh
some hole in the flooring.

The garret was chiefly valuable in my eyes dieoueti its
congregation of worthless old furniture. Rush-bettomed
chairs, with no bottoms and. decrepit backs; a grenadier
clock, which had stopped ticking during the battle of Bunker
Hill; a nail-cask full of tattered deeds, accounts, and letters,
showing how the Treats had once been a noticeable family ;
a lame wash-stand, burnt-out foot-stove, broken-winded bel-
lows, bottomless pails, one leg of a tongs, and corn-cobs in
superfluity ; such was the array of curiosities which encum-
bered the floor and disordered the corners of this interesting
seclusion. It was not by any means a rich collection, con-
sidering the antiquity of the house, but it was nevertheless a
prodigious comfort in rainy weather. >

One object there was which deserves particular notice, and
which I have. omitted. to mention thus far, not out of forget-
fulness, but out of pure reverence, because it did not seem
proper to speak of the weapon of an old Puritan soldier, in
the same breath with shovels and tongs. This weapon was a
long, cut-and-thrust sword, straight in the blade, heavily
hilted, ponderous, dull, and rusty, but withal of a most
fiercely orthodox aspect, as if it were just the thing to hew
‘a catholic or an episcopalian in pieces before the Lord. To
this, ancient side arm belonged a history which made it a
precious heirloom to the Treats, and caused its preservation
in all their ups and downs of fortune.
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 331

It seems that the first Treat who possessed it was one of
the early settlers of Hartford, in Connecticut. He lived in a
cabin situated at some distance from the village, and’ sup-
ported, beside his wife and children, a grandfather who had
become ‘very. venerable and correspondingly dilapidated.
The Pequot war broke out, and the Pequot braves made
themselves disagreeably useful in sending to glory all the
Puritans that they could lay their copper-colored hands upon.
Goodman Treat came home at noon one day to find that his
dintier and his cabin had been burnt together, and that a band
of yelling savages was posted between him and Hartford.
His wife and children had escaped in some way not speci-
fied. by tradition, though probably, according to the. praise-
worthy custom of those days, by following the guidings of
Providence; but the best that his grandfather had been able
to do for himself was to crawl into the garden with the family
sword in his hands, and hide among the cornstalks. Good-
man Treat stumbled over him and piously resolved to save
him. Taking down a clothes-line, he strapped the old gentle-
man securely across his own broad shoulders, as Eneas did
by Anchises, and then, drawing his sword, marched to en-
counter the enemy.

A. hundred Indians met him, and both sides charged to-
gether. The savages yelled after their unmelodious fashion,
and the two white men replied with nine cheers and a tiger.
Goodman Treat cut, thrust, and parried with such dexterity
that not a tomahawk touched him, while his trusty blade
snipped off Pequot heads and arms as easily as asparagus tops.
His grandfather held still and cheered him on, which was the
most that the ancient worthy could do under the circum-
stances. The Indians were resolved to get the two scalps,
‘but Goodman Treat was equally resolved to disappoint them ;
and he trudged on steadily, heroically, striking right, striking
left, thrusting ahead, and leaving behind him two winrows of

‘bisected savages to enrich his clearing. Heaven favored
him, or something did, for he cut his way through the painted
832 SEACLIFF.

host and reached Hartford without having been either hurt
or frightened. But alas! his triumph was embittered by a
terrible bereavement. He had not been able to parry quite
as. dexterously behind as before, and when he unloosed his
clothes-line he found that he possessed but the remnant of a
grandfather. The Pequot tomahawks had made sad work
with the old gentleman ; -his head, legs, and arms had succes-
sively fallen into the hands of the enemy; and there. was
scarce enough left of him to, keep on his doublet.

Subsequent to this affair, Goodman Treat gloriously dis-
tinguished himself and horribly avenged his ancestor, in the
successful expedition against the fort of Sassacus. He died
in his bed at last, after a long life of piety and Indian fight-
ing, and went to a better world, where he is now, very prob-
ably, engaged in driving Pequot ghosts out of their Happy
Hunting-Grounds.

Johnny’s object in coming up garret was evidently to play
at soldiering with the old sword. For some time he stood
glowering at it with a countenance of exceeding reverence
and desire; then he ventured to take it in both hands, then
to draw it, and finally to march about with it on his shoul-
der. It was a naughty luxury, a solitary vice, to which he
rarely dared treat himself. Ma Treat had set her flinty face
against this love of cold steel, considering that it fostered a
bloodthirsty, unchristian spirit which might end in making
the boy a pirate, a highwayman, or a soldier. It was in vain
to plead the example and the glory of her husband’s pious
ancestor, the illogical creature always discomfitted you by
replying that there were no Pequots nowadays, to speak of,
and that Johnny’s grandfathers were both dead and out of
harm’s way ever so long ago. “ Besides,” she sometimes
added, “the child might cut his own nose off, and gracious
knows that he hasn’t any to spare.”

“Johnny,” said I, after watching the perspiring lad for
some minutes, as he tramped up and down the hot garret,—
“ Johnny, why do you like to carry that sword ?”
REJECTED ADDRESSES. 333

“ Because I am a wicked boy,” droned Johnny, with that :
depraved indifference to the awful fact, which so often excited
the grief of his grandmother.

“ And what do you merit for ‘your wickedness?” I asked.

“The pains of hell, forever,” responded eae in the
same tone of monstrous unconcern.

“‘And what next, Johnny ?”

“ That’s as far as I go,” he replied, stopping his parade and
looking” at me anxiously, as if fearful that I was about to
urge him a step further into that slough of’ despond, the
catechism.

“ Well,” said I, “that’s far enough, Johnny.”

I suppose it will be seen that I was trying to pass away
time and kill reflection. The garret could not amuse. me
long, and I went back to my room to fight my Pequots
alone.’ Twenty times I seized my hat, resolved to rush up
to Seacliff and know the worst at once; but twenty times I
threw it down again, to drop feeble and purposeless into my
-rocking-chair. It was about three o’clock, I think, that I
heard a slow, sullen step on my stairway, followed by a
timid knock at my door.

~ “Come in,” said I; and Robert Van Leer entered. If I
had been a girl, conscious that this was a lover come to pro-
pose to me, my heart could not Have beat faster. He stared
at me for one moment with haggard eyes, and then, dragging
his Kossuth hat over his face, burst into tears. I pitied him,

but I could have laughed for joy.
_ Pm done for!” he sobbed. “Oh, Fitz Hugh! I shall
go into a consumption. I wish I could!”

“But you can’t, Bob,” said I; “so don’t waste your time
in trying it. Bait your ‘kool again, and heave it somewhere
else. There are plenty of other fish in the sea just as fine
as this one.”

Perhaps it was no lie that I uttered, but I believed that it
was, and felt correspondingly guilty.

“No there ain’t,” he muttered. “ And that ain’t the worst
334 - SEACLIFF.

of it. Now she'll have Somerville. He’s after her,—and
she must like him ; she must like somebody, or she wouldn’t
have sacked me.” : :

“He shan’t have her!” exclaimed I. “Tl take her my-
self, first ; that is if I can get her.”

“Will you, though?” returned the good-souled, unselfish
fellow, his broad face lighting up a little. “I wish you would.
I swear, I don’t know anybody I’d like to have her better
than you. That Somerville is a rascal, I believe ; he’d make
her miserable.”

My offer and promise.could not comfort him so thoroughly
but that he went away at last in wretchedly low spirits.

 
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIV.
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES.

AVE you ever noticed a child whose little temper has
* just been subdued, and sweetened by a sound whip-
ping? His eyes soft and damp with tears, his fore-
head humbled, his feet noiseless, his voice gentle though with
the echo of a sob in it, he clings to his mother’s knee, looks
up into-her face for forgiveness, is unresentful, meek, and
tender-hearted, and goes to bed the model of an angel-boy,
too good to live long. Poor Robert Van Leer, the discarded,
the disappointed, wore just this chastened air, uncomplaining,
unreproachful, and asking nothing but pardon. I had supposed
that he would rant and rave under his affliction, or even,
perhaps, seek revenge upon Miss Westervelt by some system
of coarse persecution ; but beneath his rough exterior there
was a kinder, more innocent, more childlike heart than any
of us knew of; and‘it had no malice, no vindictiveness, no
vulgarity of feeling stored away in those deepest depths
which had now for the first time been opened. I treated him
with the profoundest respect in those days, and I often saw
Miss Westervelt glance at him with an expression of pain
and pity.

But Mr. Westervelt was far from accepting the event in
so proper a spirit. Returning from New York the day after
the rejection, he soon gave cause to suspect that he had heard
of it, by certain’ mild and inarticulate symptoms of anger,

  
33¢ SEACLIFF.

which would have been about as terrible to most people as
the wrath of a disgusted mouse. He was, of course, too
timid to attack either me or Somerville; and Mary had to
endure alone bis sidelong, half-expressed whimpering fretful-
ness. What he said and did was not in itself very difficult
to bear; but then she loved him with a whole-souled fervor,
which laid her quite open to his persecution; a fervor
which contrasted singularly with the feebleness and vacilla-
tion of his own nature. She thought of every little attention
for him; her whole manner begged for a kind word or look ;
but he was consistently deaf and blind to her presence. It
required very slight observation to detect his game of annoy-
ance, dull, lifeless, voiceless, deedless as it was, and little as I
saw them together. I am wrong, by the way, to call it a
game, for there was probably nothing planned or systematic
in his conduct, and he would have preferred, I am afraid, to
scold her outright, assert his paternal authority fiercely, play
the iron father of the good old time, and drive her *to the
opulent match which he had set his faint heart upon. But
the stuff that he was made of was not stern enough for des-
potism, and so his anger expressed itself in a feeble-minded
worrying, much like that of a cross child. He used to meet
her with dismal averted face; to withhold the morning
and evening kiss which he was accustgmed to give her; to
fret at her awkwardness when she brought him his slippers
or did him any other gentle office; to sit glumly speechless
when she tried to interest him in her little plans and hopes ;
to complain that she hurt him when she put her arm around
his neck ; to quit the room when she came upon him alone ;
and that was about all. .A characteristic scene in this melo-
drama occurred during one of my usual twilight calls at
Seacliff. Mary had taken a seat beside her father, on a
settee under the trumpet honeysuckle. The rest of the
family were scattered about the veranda, on other settees, or
in those iron chairs which made such a ponderous pretence
of rusticity. The two Van-Leers were silently enjoying their
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 337

‘vesper cigars ; for tobacco-smoke was no affront to the lares
and penates of Seacliff.

“ And so, papa,” resumed Mary, when I had taken my
seat, “ we shall pass the winter here very comfortably. You
can run down to New York as you do now, and Genevieve
can make the Christmas visit to grandpapa. Mamma
and JI shall not be afraid to keep house alone. It will be
much less extravagant than wintering in New York ; and to
me, at least, it will be just as pleasant.”

Mr. Westervelt moaned feebly, as if utterly wearied of the
subject, and then, turning to Bob, referred the whole matter
to him with an ostentatious show of deference which con-
fused the poor youth and amused Mrs. Van Leer.

“ Robert,—I should rather say, Mr. Van Leer,—what do
you think ?—or, rather, allow me to ask your opinion. I
have great confidence in your judgment, you know, Robert.”

“Oh! don’t leave it to me,” deprecated Bob. “I don’t
know what to say. Miss Mary knows. I think what she
said was—was first-rate. Its kind of hard, though, she
should be shut up here all winter in this lonely place. I
tell you what—no, that wouldn’t do, though. Never mind
—I wasn’t going to say anything particular.”

“But Robert—Mr. Van Leer—you can propose anything
you like, you know,” insisted Mr. Westervelt. “We shall
be glad of your opinion. I have no doubt we should agree
with your views entirely.”

“ Yes—no—nothing,” stammered Bob. “I wasn’t think-
ing of anything. I don’t know as I was. I guess I wasn’t
going to say anything.”

Just at this moment that genial Mrs. Van Leer was seized
with something between a cough and a titter.

Robert, much disconcerted by the sound, turned a furtive
forlorn eye upon her, but showed no signs of offence in his
diffident and humbled countenance. Whatever vices of char-
acter, whatever perversities and asperities had been implanted

in the sorrowing lad by nature and education, seemed to have
15
338 SEACLIFF.

been all changed by his late disappointment into a harvest of
the meekest and bashfullest virtues. He glanced around him
to see if the laugh was general, and then dropped his head
with a sigh upon his bosom. Meantime Miss Westervelt,
leaning her cheek on her hand, sat quite still, looking at her
father with such a pleading, anxious, almost penitent expres-
sion, that it made his sickly moroseness seem downright
cruelty. ‘

“Papa!” she said presently, in a tone that absolutely sup-
plicated for his notice.

“What?” grunted papa, without suffering the light of his
countenance to fall upon her.

“You don’t seem to know that I am here, papa,” she
whispered.

I could not see the tears peeping out of their nest, but I
felt sure that they were there, because she spoke with that
smothered voice which we all have when trouble changes the
countenance and dims the sight. He did not soften to her
sorrow, but gathered more waywardness from it, according
to the nature of moral cowards.

“ You—you trouble me, Mary,” he said. “There! haven’t
you sat by me long enough? Let your sister have the place
now. Come, Genevieve, come and sit by your father.”

Mary left her seat, but Genevieve did not occupy it.
Turning her spirited profile toward her genitor, she replied,
with a coolness which almost made me smile, “ No, I thank
you, papa; I don’t care for the seat at all; I am very well
as I am.”

There was a little defiant asperity in her face, and still
more in the sharp toss of her head. She evidently saw
through the system of teasing coercion which was being
practised on her sister, and sympathized with neither the
spirit nor the object of it. Perhaps she was not at all sorry
that Bob had been refused, inasmuch as it saved him for her-
self, supposing she should ever want him, and also punished
him for the absurdity of lavishing his affections on another.
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 339

I do not mean to malign Jenny; I assert positively that she
was a whole-souled, generous girl; but I still think that it
annoyed her to see her sister getting two thirds of the atten-
tions and all the offers. She took it as a slight upon her
own attractions, and could not understand that she was only
seventeen.

Mr. Westervelt made no response of word or look to his
youngest daughter’s insubordination ; he bowed before Gen-
evieve’s spunk just as readily and instinctively as he bullied
Mary’s gentleness.

“Qh! you don’t care about it? Well, never mind,” he
said ; and, getting up with a moan, wandered moodily down
the garden. Our faces seemed brighter in the growing moon-
light as this frail, invalid, troubled, disappointed being passed
out from among us.

“T am sorry that Mr. Westervelt seems unwell,” observed
Somerville, in his well-bred fashion, too civil to see beneath
the surface.

“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Westervelt. “Business weighs heav-
ily on him. It is a sorrowful world,” she added, in a com-
monplace way, thinking perhaps how sad it was that she
could not be a young lady and a belle, as she used to be.

“Very likely,” said Somerville. “Most people quietly
acknowledge that, sooner or later. But it is a fact of the
impertinent, disagreeable species, and I generally treat it with
silent contempt. Isn’t that your way, Miss Westervelt ?”

“T don’t know,” she replied, wearily. “I haven't lived
long enough to have a way.”

“Oh! there you have the advantage of me,” said Somer-
ville, with bow and smile complimentary. “It is agreeable
to be young, and fortunate while one is young. There are
few men wise enough to wish they had been born women;
but I am one of the few. Of course, I shouldn’t care 'to be
an ugly woman. Far from me be that misery !”

“Which of us four would you rather be?” asked Mrs.
Van Leer, slipping out her pretty foot.
840 a SEACLIFF.

“ All four, if: you please, one after the other,” decided
Somerville.

“Very gallant; much obliged to you,” said the- lady.
“What is your choice, Mr. Fitz Hugh ?”

“T don’t know that I care for a change,” I Saunaab

“He is afraid of disappointing some young lady,” vhs
pered Somerville to Mrs. Van Leer.

“T don’t find it so disagreeable to call. myself one of fis
lords of creation,” I continued. “ Perhaps, however, I
should like to combine a woman’s: heart with a man’s head.” :

“Then your heart would always be quarrelling with your
head,—making a fool of it, perhaps,” said Somerville, aloud.

“Guess you never was troubled that way,” put. in Bob,
with sudden energy. oS

Mrs. Westervelt gave Somerville a glance of singular
meaning; a glance instantly withdrawn, and of which he
took no manner of notice. Genevieve clapped her hands,
patted Bob on the back, and laughed boisterously. Robert
seemed to be quite cheered by the success of his sally, and
looked round him for a moment with the air of a man who
feels himself a match for the wittiest and wisest. It was the
one solitary intentional atticism of his life, and even to this
present he does not desist from occasionally calling it up, as
a cow does her cud, and chewing the reminiscence of it with
great vanity and satisfaction. After an evening with a party
of new acquaintances, after every other-man has cracked his
joke, or told his story, Bob will begin modestly, “Well, I
never was smart but once ;” and then will come an extended

history of his satirical onslaught upon Somerville, followed
by a tremendous burst of laughter, entirely his own and in
its way very superior.

This was pretty much all that occurred worthy of notice
during the evening. The reader, perhaps, inquires disdain-
fully whether I consider such trifling incidents and dialogues
-as these worthy of notice ; and certainly my most suitable
reply seems to be a bow of humility and.a shrug of depreca-
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 341

tion. But, after all, is it my fault that I live in a degenerate
age, when there are no dragons, nor enchanters, nor hardly
any pirates, and when fathers do not immure their recusant
daughters in- sloppy dungeons? .On second thoughts, more-
over, I am thankful that the incidents of my life at Seacliff
were no more melodramatic; for, externally quiet, homely,
and unadventurous as they were, they abbreviated my sleep,
reduced my weight, and kept me in a constant worry. No
man who has not been thoroughly in love, that is so far en-
amored as to loathe and despise his bachelorhood, can under-
stand how many distresses a lover has to encounter, even
when no magician sails away with the mistress of his soul,
and when -her papa is but an ordinary specimen of a well-
mannered and pretty good-natured American.

But in reality there was a secret romance, of a painful
character, within that simple country life of Seacliff. It
crept invisibly yet perceptibly, beneath all our hours of inno-
cent talk and laughter, like a serpent writhing unseen among
fresh grasses and flowers. It was so inaudible that it seemed
far off, inexistent, impossible, and yet it might spring upon us
at any moment, stinging some to death, and others to lifelong
anguish. The lightning is high and quiet in the clouds, but
it can reach the earth in a second, and destroy before its
thunder-footstep has been heard. I was sure that some
vague danger was muttering near, but I could not tell what
was its exact nature, nor whether it was approaching or
retreating. Have you never been surrounded by the din of
streets or of conversation, and at the same time heard music
playing far away, the sound certain but the air uncertain, a
few notes reaching your ear and then no more, and then
again a doubtful muffled burst of the distant melody? You
listen intently, trying to catch the tune, but you listen in
vain, and cannot tell whether it is a bacchanalian song or a
funeral miserere, whether it is a warlike march or a saintly
anthem. It was just so that I hearkened to the undertones
of that mystery which pervaded the life of Seacliff. ‘That
342 SEACLIFF.

some strange drama, or possibly tragedy was enacting, I
knew; but what it exactly was, how it would end, and when,
I could not be sure. Suspicions indeed I had, sombre and
persistent enough; but no certain knowledge that would ena-
ble me to warn or to save.

Perhaps it will interest some persons to know that Mrs.
Van Leer finished the evening by dragging off Somerville to
walk in the garden. It was a prolonged stroll, and a merry
one, if one could judge by the lady’s giggling. In the mean
time Henry Van Leer smoked cigar after cigar, staring ab-
stractedly at Long Island, and thinking the thoughts of an
oyster. Occasionally he turned his glance toward his wife’s
white muslin, as her laughter and chatter burst mare merrily
than ordinary from the deepest shadows of the garden; and
then a quiet pleasure illuminated his bovine face, as if another
moon had suddenly shone upon-it, and a look of pleasure like
a star beamed from his slow brown eyes. J never knew a
heavier-moulded man, nor one more devoid of guile and sus-
picion. He lovingly put his arm round his wife’s waist when
she returned, flushed with romping, and elated with the de-
lightful consciousness that her flirting had been reciprocated.
Dull and leaden as he was, and clever as her sparkling im-
pertinences sometimes seemed, she was disgracefully unwor-
thy of him. From this evening she cultivated Somerville ;
she irrigated him with her flirtations; and the affair pros-
pered.

As I was leaving the grounds Mr. Westervelt pounced
upon me so suddenly that I suspected him of having laid wait
for me.

“ Oh—ah—Mr. Fitz Hugh, is that you?” said he; “I—
I was just meditating on something that—that puzzles me,—
yes, puzzles me. By the way, it is no affair of yours, and I
ought not to trouble you with it. The fact is, I should not
trouble you with it, ha ha, but for the obligations we are
under to you. A curious reason, isn’t it? You save my
daughter’s life, and I bore you with our private affairs.
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 848

Well, the case is, that I am from home a good deal; and
you—you are here a good deal,—I mean occasionally,—
always very happy to have you call, of course; but perhaps,
as you are an observant man, and have had opportunities
for observation,—perhaps you could give me some light on
the subject. The truth is, Mr. Fitz Hugh, that there is
something going on in my house that I do not quite under-
stand.”

In his embarrassment he now came to a full stop. I stood
silent also, looking away from him, puzzled and anxious, if
not fairly alarmed. Had he at last suspected the household
mystery, and was he about to question me concerning its
meaning? What did I know of it, and how could I torture
him with my mere suspicions ?

“ Really, I ought not to trouble you with it,” he resumed.
“But then, you remember, I made you a confidant in my
-views with regard to—to the proposed alliance of our mutual
friend Robert, with—with my family, in short. And, there-
fore, it seems natural that I should not conceal from you the
result of those views—or plans. The truth is, that my eldest
daughter seems to be biased against our mutual friend. You
will, of course, keep it a profound secret; but she is preju-
diced,—in fact, decidedly prejudiced. Now, Mr. Fitz Hugh,
who has been the cause of this?” (Here he tried to study
my countenance.) “Do you—allow me to ask—do you sus-
pect Mr. Somerville of having used any influence against our
mutual friend, Robert?” (Still looking as steadily as he
dared into my eyes, and creeping close up to me as if he
would steal into my mouth after the secret.) “If so, you.
would confer a great favor by letting me know it. I should,
of course, use the information with prudence. Excuse me ;
it is a bold question, I know; but then I am a father and
have my daughter’s hap—” (a cough) “happiness greatly at
heart. And then this Somerville is—well, excellent family,
to be sure, none better,—fine manners, and all that sort of
thing,—but, after all, he is not exactly the husband that I
344 SEACLIFF.

should like to give ay daughter to. Would hardly make her
-happy, I am afraid.’

I had been trying to speak for some time, but he had
checked me eagerly with his forefinger. I answered crisply
and clearly now, for I felt a various and very energetic indig-
‘nation. “No, sir, I don’t know that Mr. Somerville has
exercised influence for or against Robert. I don’t know that
he has any influence with Miss Westervelt. I have been ad-
mitted into neither his secrets nor Miss Westervelt’s.”

“ Oh !—ah,” he murmured, and slid back from me with an
air of disappointment. While he stood silent, studying out,
perhaps, some new course of cross-examination, I put in a
‘distracting remark about the weather, bade him a polite good-
evening, and dodged away.

I had no more private conversations with Mr. Westervelt,
for the present. He received news next day that some cop-
per mine had blown up on Lake Superior, and that his pres-
ence was imperatively demanded among the falling fragments
in New York.

Is any one curious to know how I now stood with Somer-
ville? He made no more attacks upon me, except it were
in the form of faint insinuations, covert sneers, and ironical
-compliments, so glossed over with a sheen of smiles, that I
am not sure, even at this day, that I understood them aright.
In the mean time I question whether he was profoundly com-
' fortable, although no billow underneath ever rocked the frozen
surface above. Day by day he must have seen more clearly
that he had no chance of winning Miss Westervelt; and
such revelations can grievously vex the vanity of a woman-
killer, even if they cannot disturb his heart. As for me, I
did not seek quarrel; I was too happy, too contented for
that; it is never the winning player who gets angry. I
hoped, or rather I dared believe that I was finding my way
back to Miss Westervelt’s confidence, and that she already
looked upon me as a sure friend in time of trouble: Did I
hear this confession in her tones, or see it in her manner ?
RESULTS OF REJECTED ADDRESSES. 845

Of course I could not: a man in love is like one who carries
a. lantern by night; his own form is lit up, but all at a little
distance is darkness. However, there soon came an hour
when I no longer groped alone, but saw another figure beside
me, she also bearing a lantern like mine, which illuminated
her fair face, and showed me that on her forehead was writ-
ten a new name.

 
 

 

 

CHAPTER XXV.

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

qe was a still, hot midsummer twilight when Pa

Treat came home from a barn-raising which had

‘ been accomplished some two miles distant, and told

a pitiful story of a poor, simple fellow named Warner, who

had fallen from a scaffolding and been carried home with a
broken leg.

“It’s a bad business for him and his folks,” observed Pa
Treat, gravely. “I know they haint anything for a rainy
day. He’s a mighty feeble, silly creetur; don’t know how
to work; wife don’t know how to save. Regular pair of—
blunderbusses. A whole boat-load of young ’uns, too. They'll
be hard up.”’

It struck me at once that I ought to walk over to War-
ner’s, and see what I could do for him. In general Jam a
lazy man in my charities, and would rather give a dollar to a
street. beggar whom I strongly suspect of being an impostor,
. than go half a dozen blocks to expend a shilling on a worthy
" family ; but Miss Westervelt had invigorated all my virtues,
and made me for the time an indomitable philanthropist. I
knew that she would hurry to the Warners as soon as she
learned of their distress, and I wished to have her hear
that I had been there before her. Accordingly, putting
money in my purse, and taking a basket of eatables which
Ma Treat contributed, I set-off, at about half-past seven, on
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 347

my errand of somewhat selfish benevolence. Sombre clouds
flocked in the horizon; a current of fresh humid wind shot
through the sultry atmosphere ; and I had not made a quar-
ter of a mile before I thought it prudent to go back for my
wnbrella. Now came an obstacle in the way of .my benig-
nity : the desired utensil could nowhere be discovered. Un-
questionably there is something remarkably transitory and
migratory in the character of umbrellas. Their sudden and
unlooked-for disappearances have no little air of the marvel-
lous ; and perhaps it might be reckoned one of the great ques-
tions of the age, where all the umbrellas go to? Innumerable
individuals have lost one, but nobody ever seems to have
found one. Whether they are subject to the mysterious and
-misehievous principalities of the air, or whether they take
flight. to the arctic circles in search of their whale relatives,
it would be difficult to decide; but it seems certain ‘that
‘they are occasionally governed by influences not altogether
human.

My umbrella was as undiscoverable as the northwest pas-
sage. Darkness was upon earth, the storm approaching; and
Ma Treat urged me, with motherly solicitude for my health,
to put off my philanthropy till the morrow; but I thought
of Miss Westervelt, and plunged out into the murky, gusty
evening. I walked furiously; struck across lots to shorten
the distance; came to a swamp and was obliged to go round

-it; lost the road and had to inquire it at three farm-houses ;
-and thus was fully three quarters of an hour in going the
_ two miles. During the last ten minutes I travelled fast,
lighted and speeded on by streams of lightning sharp, near,
and almost continuous in their blinding succession. The final
ten rods were done at a killing pace under the first drenching
rush of the storm. As I came in front of the house, an elec-
tric blaze lit it up with such a pale dazzling glory as the
most sumptuous palace never wore by day, transfiguring its
low, brown, dilapidated front into the similitude of a spectral,
spiritual mansion not made with hands, and-worthy to shine
348 :. SEACLIFF.

im, eternal heavens... Great is the transforming magic of
moonlight; greater still the terrible enchantment of light-
ning. I burst into the front door without knocking, and
stood for a moment dripping in a dark entry. Then a side
‘door opened, letting a glimmer of light upon me; and a
shrill, disagreeable female voice called through the crack,
“Who's there?”

Bowing blandly, I announced my name and anal with
that insinuating, almost apologetical voice, which a man is
“very apt to use when he is offering a charity which may not,
perhaps, be peroey received. :

Come in,” said Mrs. Warner, flinging the door os
“Much obleeged to ye, to be sure. Law suz, how wet. ye
be! Let me take yer basket. Oh!” (with some contempt)
“cold victuals! We shall have cold victuals enough, ‘I.
reckon. Can’t pay the doctor with cold victuals.”

“ From Mrs. Treat,” said I, and stopped in wonder, to
stare at Miss Westervelt. There she was, in her broad hat
and linen cape,'standing by the bedside of the maimed man
and nodding to me with a smile and a blush.

“You are before me, then?” I said. “Of course. Well,
what is there to be done?”

“ Nothing,” she replied. “Except for Mr. Warner to lie
here patiently till his leg is well,” she added, turning to the
invalid.

“That’s enough, I reckon,” he eee in a tone half
chuckle, half whimper. “It’s play for the rest of you, but
work.for me. Oh, Lordy !”

“Guess I’ve got to work a few to get your living, ola
-man,” remarked the wife, snappishly. “ How I’m to dew it,
and wait on you tew, the goodness gracious knows,—I don’t.”

“Don’t be uneasy, Mrs. Warner,” said I. “ You shan’t
suffer. Keep up your spirits, and things won’t go so badly.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear on’t,’? was her gracious reply.
“But we have suffered in our time, and I wan't folks to
know. it.” :
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 349

“Where are the children?” I asked. “I thought you
had five or six.”

“So we have,” she responded with a grimace which did

not seem to express gratitude for the blessing. “ Wall,
the two oldest is out to sarvice, finally. As for the young
’uns, one neighbor has took one, and one has took another,
till we’ve got rid of the whole scrape and bilin of ’em, ’cept
Polly there, who’s kep to go arrants and fetch the doctor.”
-- I turned and surveyed a dirty, ragged, sunburnt girl of
six or seven, sitting on her heels in a corner, and staring
wistfully at ber mother, who just then picked a lump of
sugar out of the basket and ate it with gusto. The child
‘sighed slightly, glanced at me as if to demand my interest,
and observed in a clear, pleasant, resigned voice, with per-
haps a dash of vanity in it, “I get sugar too, when I take my
gin.”

The maternal fist was shaken at her in a private way, and
the remark did not give rise to conversation.

The Warners, in short, were by no means interesting poor
people. The father was a simpleton, the mother a tartar, the
children pests to the neighborhood; and all of them drank
spirituous liquors to the utmost measure of their ability to
have and to hold. In almost every New England township
there are two or three such families, whose names are become
synonyms for hereditary vice and worthlessness, whose young
ones feed the prisons, and whose elders are buried without a
stone in the shabbiest corner of the churchyard. The breed .
seems to be hopelessly bad, and its history is a monotonous
record of idleness and crime, ending with an attack of the
venerable family distemper, delirium tremens, or perchance
with a more exalted anguish in the prison court. .

_ There was little to do at present for the relief of the War-
ners. The doctor had set the limb skilfully and the in-
jured man was not sick enough to require a watcher. I
slipped into the entry, on pretence of looking at the weather,
but really to get a bill out of my pocket-book, wherewith
350 SEACLIFF.

unobservedly to assuage Mrs. Warner’s sorrows. Miss Wes-
tervelt followed me and whispered, “Don’t give them money.
They might spend it foolishly.. Our way is to put a few dol-
lars to their credit at the Temperance Store in Rockford, and
let them trade it out. It keeps them from buying rum.”

I thanked her, and, reéntering the room, informed the
Warners, somewhat to their disgust, I thought, that I should
deposit ten dollars to their account in the Temperance Store.
I have sometimes wondered whether I should have given as
much as that, if Miss Westervelt had not been present and
things generally had not been pretty much as things happily
were. ‘

“Qur next business is to get home,” observed I, glancing
at the streaming windows. ;

“That will be easy enough,” said Miss Westervelt. “The
carriage is close by, in some shed or other. Will you
call it?”

Forgetting that my voice was water-proof, while my per-
son was apt to catch cold, I did not stand wisely in the entry
and halloo, but ran out in the rain to look for James. He
saw me, probably, for there was a trampling of hoofs, a roll-
ing of wheels, and the Seacliff barouche pulled up at the
door. An encouraging word to the sick man, a “ Good-
night, ma’am,” to Mrs. Warner, a sixpence to the darling who
only got sugar when she took her gin, a helping hand to Miss
Westervelt, and I found myself buttoned up warm in the
carriage, having of course forgotten Ma Treat’s eleemosynary
basket.

A slight arrangement of dress, perhaps unconscious, seemed
to tell me that I might venture to take a seat beside Miss
Westervelt. The thunder had ceased now, and the rear-
guard of the rain was hurrying past us in a charge of heavy,
seattering drops ; but the curtains were down and the win-
‘dows closed, so that no belated passer, nor even the coachman
could possibly see or hear us. It was the first time that I
had ever been shut away with her alone, where no eye could
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 851

behold and no ear listen. The’ great world stood far apart
from us, leaving me at liberty to speak all my thoughts ; but,
in place of the world, there was a spectral hand on my throat,
strangling the words that I longed to utter. It was the same
mysterious, elfish hand that has sought to force silence on
every man that ever loved. Why was human nature so
-ordained that it cannot enunciate its most earnest, most sacred
emotions, at least for the first time, except in accents that
faint and flutter like little birds taking their first flight from
the nest ?

“ Miss Westervelt, there is something which I must tell you,”
I said, suddenly, shaking the phantom grasp from my throat
for a moment. She made no reply, but I expected none,
waited for none, and continued, hurriedly, “Yes, I have
something to tell you; and then a question to ask you.”

I said it, I asked it, in spite of the goblin hand, in spite of
Robert and Mr. Westervelt, in spite of the mystery. I re-
member the very words which faltered over my lips, like
‘dying waves sobbing across a bar, but I shall not write them
here, for although they were only mine, and were, perhaps,
of most commonplace nature, they still seem to me too sacred
to be flung through the world. »

“Oh, Mr. Fitz Hugh! stop!” she whispered. “ Please,
don’t say this to me. You must not! you must not!”

“ And why must I not?” said I, eagerly, the phantom
grasp all broken now. “ What is there in the way? Do
you dislike me? Tellme. Do you dislike me?”

There was a “No,” whispered, oh so faintly, so unwil-
lingly, and yet so kindly!

“Then, why may I not talk to you so?” I urged. “ Why
not ask you that? Can’t you ever like me enough to be
what I wish you to be? Don’t make me unhappy. Can't
you? Tell me, yes.”

Perhaps the spectre was troubling her now, for she made
no answer, except to sob gently. Of a sudden she snatched
her hand away from my lips, saying, “No no! I cannot—I
352 '  SEACLIFF.

cannot. You must not. Oh! indeed, you must not think of
it any more.” ;

“ But what does this mean, Mary? What is it that makes
it wrong? Are you—engaged to any one else? Is that
it?” fe :

“Nono! Iam not engaged. I never have been. Oh!
I cannot tell you what it is. Please, don’t ask me.”

“Ts it your father? Does he dislike me? I know that he
meant you for some one else,—for Robert. It was he who-
told me so; and I supposed at one time that you were cer-
tainly to marry Robert.” yes

“No, it is not that. That ‘is all-over. I could never
marry Robert, and papa knows it. It is something else, that
I can never tell you; but if you should ever know it, you
would be satisfied ; you would feel that I am doing right in
saying that we must never, never talk of this any more.”

“You could love me, then? and Jou are willing to marry

me? but you cannot?”

’ «Qh, no! I cannot. I must not, for your sake. You
would not wish me to-do it, if oe knew all. For your own
sake, you would not.” :

“ But, what if I do not care at all about my own sake?
What if my own sake insists on being married without the
least regard to consequences,—without the least regard to
anything, however frightful or painful, or shameful? ”

“Tt is impossible. You talk in‘that way because you do
not know what I know. If I should accept you now, and
tell you this secret afterward, when it would be too late for
you to retreat, you would hate me. ‘No, believe me that I
know best; and I know’that I ought not to consent.”

In spite of the darkness and the muddy road, the driver-
had made good speed, and we were now grinding through the
gravel before the front steps of Seacliff. There was just
time to give her hand a dozen kisses, and to whisper, “ You
must consent ; you shall consent; I will talk to you about this
to-morrow,” when the door opened, and I had to aid her into
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 853

the veranda. The hall lamp was shining full upon us, and
Mrs. Westervelt had come out to meet us. She stared at my
dear companion’s blushing excited face, and turned briskly
to give me a glance of scrutiny, under pretence of seeing
if I was not wet. Protesting my state of perfect drouth, I
slid into the shadow of one of the Ionic columns, made my
goodnight bow from thence, muttered something about the
pleasure of seeing her again in the morning, and skipped
away homeward. Ma Treat gave me no peace, and would

accept of none herself until I had changed all my clothes, and
scalded myself half to death with hot tea. I got away from
her as soon as possible, and locked myself into my room to
enjoy the tumultuous, tossing gladness of my heart, all as ab-
surd, of course, to the matter-of-fact reader as the waves of
the ocean to the stirless, voiceless rocks that look down upon
them. What these emotions were, I leave to the popular
imagination, conscious that I have already been nigh upon
wearisome in my confessions, and that I have hazarded a bold
stroke in relating a love-scene to this turtle-blooded century.
There are two periods in the life of a male human creature.
when he is apt to undervalue, or even to despise love-making.
The first arrives in his extreme youth, before the mental and
moral toga has been conferred on him; the second in his old
age, after all the strength and fire of. his noble prime have
burned to cinders, and been dusted away by the wings of.
Time. As is the life of an individual, so, say the. philoso-
phers, is the life of a people. In which of these two periods
our present sociality may be, whether in that of passionless
childhood, or in that of exhausted senescence, I will not
attempt to decide, although I greatly fear that we are very”
old, and, morally speaking, shall never see ninety again.

I felt no timidity, no doubts, no uneasiness, no repentance,
nothing but gayety, happiness, and triumph, when I went up
to Seacliff the next morning. I did not care a straw for her.
“ must-nots” and “cannots,” her hesitations and refusals. I
knew what she meant by them all; I. knew that she alluded
854 SEACLIFF.

to that wicked mystery which was brooding near her; but I
did not care for the shame, and I would not have cared for it
had it stood already unveiled to the world; or rather, I longed
to bear it with her, since it must be borne, and to put my own
shoulders, instead of hers, beneath the burden. It was in the
garden, on the bench of the grape arbor, that I found her.
She looked very sad, thinking over her “must-nots” and
“cannots,” I suppose; but started up at sight of me, with a
bright blush and a tremulous smile, such as greet ¢ a dear
friend rather than an enemy.

“T have come to talk to you again about it, as I told you
I should,” said I.

She shook her head gravely, but did not speak, although
her lips half parted.

“TJ could not say, last evening, half the things that I wanted
to say,” I went on. “ But tell me one thing, Mary, before
all others. What is that great obstacle ?”

“Qh, don’t ask me! I can really never tell you that.
Don’t force me!” she pleaded. “ You would never ask me
that question again if you knew how unhappy I am,—and
have been.” The tears started quickly, but she brushed
them away with her hand, and quelled herself. “It is enough
that I know what it is,” she added, calmly, “and that I know
it to be sufficient.”

“ But, suppose that I too know what it is, and that I don’t
consider it by any means sufficient,” said I.

“But you don’t know,—you can’t know,” she responded,
excitedly.

“ But I do know, Mary; at least I think I do. Is it not
something connected with Mr. Somerville ?”

The blood all left her cheeks, and she stared at me quietly,
silently, as a corpse might stare.

“Tam sure that it is,” I went on. “Iknow so much, at least.
But, listen,—don’t be alarmed,—I know very little more. He
is spinning some wicked web here ;—I am sure of that,
perfectly sure ;—but that is all that I am sure of. Never
THE OLD, OLD STORY. 355

mind ; it troubles you, I see; don’t let us talk of it any more.
But, I must say this one thing further. Whatever he has
done, whatever he is doing or may do, it makes no difference
with me. No difference? I will care for you all the more.
Remember, now :—I shall not change my feelings or wishes
because of Somerville ;—I am still determined to ask for
you ; still determined to e

~ Well, I will not repeat all that long conversation which it
cost me to silence her scruples and quiet her anxieties.

 
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVI.
WESTERVELT, SENIOR.

LEFT Miss Westervelt with a declaration, not a

is little terrible to her, though she did not attempt to

4 discuss it, that I should see her father as soon as

possible and ask him what he thought of our new arrange-
ment of the family constellations.

That very afternoon I took the cars to New York, and put
up at the Astor House. I found Mr. Westervelt patrolling
the marble checkers of the hall, his hands clasped behind him,
his countenance fallen below zero, his whole air that of a
man who is meditating his dying speech and confession. The
Lake Superior mine had evidently hit him hard when it went
off; had knocked more coppers out of him, perhaps, than it
ever had in its own bowels. At first thought it seemed an
entirely unpropitious moment to make my communication,
and I dodged away before his wandering footsteps; but after
walking a few moments in a side passage the idea occurred
to me that this unlucky business man might now look upon
his daughter as a non-paying investment, to be disposed of
as soon as possible ; and so, pulling my moustache, as bearded
men are apt to do when they have weighty affairs on hand,
I advanced to meet him. He halted at sight of me, smiled
languidly, shook hands and asked in a weak voice, how were
they all at Seacliff? I stated minutely the favorable plight
of the family health, but I doubt whether he heard me, and
WESTERVELT, SENIOR. 357

am confident that if anybody near him had whispered
“Stocks!” he would have turned his back upon the most
vital core of my narrative. With a somewhat decayed voice
I finally asked if I could have the pleasure of seeing him
alone for a few minutes. After a brief alarmed stare, he
murmured, “ Certainly, certainly,” and, turning on his heel
with spasmodic briskness, led the way to his room.

Never, I imagine, were two men brought together who
looked more mortally’ afraid of each other than did Mr.
Westervelt and I at that interesting moment when he dropped
into an arm-chair and I on a sofa. I did not comprehend
his expression then, and only noted it vaguely, as a man
notes the margin of a book when he is reading; but I am
confident now that he expected me to say something awful
about stocks or copper mines; to tell him, perhaps, that he
was hanging over the abyss of bankruptcy. The stairs,
somehow, had jolted all the breath out of me, and during the
moment that I waited for my powers of speech he seemed to
suffer agonies. When the reality came out, therefore, and he
found that I had nothing worse to say than 1o ask him for
his daughter, his face brightened up so much that I thought
I was about to get the paternal benediction instantaneously.
Then came the old drooping of the weary, irresolute head ;
the old peevish look of uncertainty, trouble and timid dis-
content. _°

“T really don’t know what to tell you, sir,” were his first
words. (So very characteristic!) ‘“ You have surprised me,
Mr. Fitz Hugh. I did not expect this,—especially after the
conversations that I had with you regarding my—my plans
for Miss Westervelt. Accordingly I am quite—hem—as-
tonished! I really had no idea of this state of things before,
sir!! Nobody has informed me of it, or even hinted that
such a thing was in progress, so that you must not consider it
singular if I am rather amazed, sir ! ! !”

* His adjectives and emphasis grew stronger in proportion
as my face assumed an air of discomfiture. At first I was
858 SEACLIFF.

unable to meet his look, but presently it became clear that
he was charging me indirectly with bad faith, and then a
thrill of resentment flushed me suddenly, besides, perhaps, ’
giving my eyes a pugnacious sparkle. As my color rose, his
expletives subsided and his voice died away until it became~
fairly a smile.

“ Mr. Westervelt,” I began, very earnestly indeed, “ until-
a few days ago there was nothing to inform you of. J had:
no hopes of winning Miss Westervelt. I expected to see
her become the wife of another. I am sure, sir, that I was
not in any manner bound to tell you of feelings that I sup-
posed were doomed to utter disappointment.”

“No no,—of course not,—of course not,” he murmured.
“ Excuse my emotion,—my warmth. I had set my heart on.
the suit—the success of Sonat But that is _ hepeless—
that is hopeless,—I suppose.” ~

“So Miss Westervelt assures me, sir; and so, I belive,
she has assured others.”

“Yes, yes. Well, I can’t decide to-day,” he responded,
fretting again as he heard this new contradiction to his favor-
ite project. “I must have time,—time to think about it.
Call on me again to-morrow ; yes, have the—the goodness to-
call and see me to-morrow; say at this hour about.”

“Thank you, sir,’ I replied bowing. “Good afternoon
Mr. Westervelt. I regret it bitterly, I do assure you, that I
have been obliged to give you so much pain.”

“No apologies, I beg. Good-day, sir,” he replied in a.
peevish tone, though still bowing courteously.

He had half closed the door behind me, when he suddenly
pulled it open again and called to me to wait a moment.
“ At your pleasure, sir,” I replied, and stood expectant.

“ Suppose, Mr. Fitz Hugh,—suppose you should see my-
father about this,” he said, looking in my face with the air
almost of a man who asks a favor. “ Westervelt, senior, you
know, in South Street. I have the greatest confidence in my
father’s views of things. If he approves,—why, if he ap-
WESTERVELT, SENIOR. 359

proves, I shall endeavor to make no objection.. I will go
with you. No no; of course you had best see him alone.
Stop an instant. I will give you a letter of introduction.”

It was some ten minutes before he could get a note written
to his satisfaction ; and then he sealed it, so that I am to this
day ignorant of its contents. I took it, thanked him, bowed
again and left the room in a much wondering mood. It
seemed an odd thing to demand a young lady of her grand-
father. while her father was yet living; but then in this case
the grandfather kept the money-chest, and we all know how
much may be locked up in a money-chest: how many la-
borious lives, how many hearts both young and old, how
much sorrow and how much joy. ‘Finally it occurred to me
that Mr. Westervelt might count on the stern stuff of his sire
to give me that -positive rebuff which his own womanish
nature desired, but dreaded to administer.

I was a low-spirited man at eleven o’clock next morning,
when I set out for the office of Westervelt, senior. I was
almost overcomingly tempted to encourage myself for the ex-
pedition with a glass of porter; but, fearful that the old gen-
tleman might smell it in my breath and take a prejudice to
me, I went off total abstinently. Once more I came to the
Quincy granite doorway, and saw the grimy tin placard
upon which was,written the terrible name. In the doorway,
too, stood the same small, thin, alert old gentleman, with the
large Roman features and the short, stiff, white hair, glaring
just as savagely as ever at the Quincy granite stores opposite,
and beating the same sharp tattoo with his iron-shod cane on
the Quincy granite lintel. Quincy granite seemed to be his
favorite material, and he looked the impersonation of Quincy
granite from top to toe. His hat, coat, vest, pants, and gait-
ers, were all of a Quincy granite color; his great eyes were
of a cold, stony gray, astonishingly like polished Quincy
granite ; and his face, with its rugged lines and hard expres-
sion, was as the countenance of a Quincy granite quarry. I
looked at him with dismay, thinking that the very rod of
360 SEACLIFF. ~

Moses-would run a poor chance of drawing waters.of sym-
pathy from such a compact veteran boulder. -

“Mr, Wenarvels I believe,” said. I, , bowing myself up the
steps.

“ Yes,.sir,” he returned, in such a dry, hard tone, that I
thought one of the granite door-posis might have ae it
forth. —

“ Allow me to-introduce myself as Mr. Fitz Hugh, - I haw
a letter from Mr. Westervelt, junior, presenting me, and, ex-
plaining, I believe, my object in calling on you.”

“ Humph!” he responded, with an air of profound con-
tempt, which seemed to be directed at me, but which was
probably meant for his absent offspring: “Come into my oft
fice, sir.”

Turning short on his heels, like a drill-sergeant performing
the about-face, he trotted up to a door with a window in it,
pushed me into the room before him with obdurate Quincy
granite politeness, and signed’ me to an office-chair, wooden-
bottom, uncushioned, and savagely whittled. I handed him
his son’s letter, and there ensued a silence only broken by the
rustling of the paper. He crossed his legs comfortably, read
the note through with business-like despatch, folded it up, laid
it away in a pigeon-hole, and then remarked, “ Well, sir?” ;

“TI am not quite sure,” said I, “ whether, Mr. Westervelt
has explained my intentions.”

“ He has, sir. He says you want to marry his inagleee
Mary.”

“« Yes, sir; it is precisely that ; and he referred me to you.”

“ What do you want to marry her for? She’s no money.”

“J don’t care about money,” returned I, quite insulted.
“T ask for nothing but Miss Westervelt herself.”

“ How much are you worth?” he demanded, without tak-
ing the least notice of my sentimental excitement.

“ About thirty thousand dollars,” responded I, with a sud-
den feeling of shrinkage, as I thought of his six millions. |

“ Thirty thousand,” said he. .‘Humph! It’s not a great
WESTERVELT, SENIOR. 361

sum, sir. I hope you know it. However, it’s enough, with
pluck, sir. I hadn’t thirty hundred when I married. A man
doesn’t need much of an inheritance to make his way in the
world. He doesn’t need any, sir!” (Loudly.) “Make me
young again, and set me down in my shirt, I don’t care where,
and I wouldn’t call the king my cousin. Well, can you live
on your money,—keep a wife on it?”

“Yes sir,” replied I cheerfully, for I thought I saw that
he was going to let me try the experiment.

“ Be sure you can live, sir. Don’t look to your father-in-
law’; he has nothing. Don’t look to me, either ;—I’m sick
of my son and his family ;—I think I shall disinherit them,
sir. Lord! what a simpleton that boy of mine is! He has
wasted capital enough, sir,” (a smack of the cane on the
floor,) “capital enough to make a dozen fortunes, that boy
has.”

As the thought of his fifty-year-old boy seemed to excite
him unpleasantly, I hastened to change the subject. “My
income is not large, sir; it is only about twenty-two hundred
a year; but that will be sufficient, I think, to support us in
the country.”

“ But will the little baggage live in the country? Most
girls won’t; must have a+ pavement; can’t exist without
rows of shops.” ‘ :

“There are a great many married women in the country,
sir, as you can see by the number of children in the district
schools.”

“That’s true,” grinned the old gentleman. “There are
some sensible and economical women still. Well, what are
your investments ?”

“ Half bank stock, and half bond and mortgage, averaging
seven per cent., and a little over.”

“No business then?” he asked sternly, and all Quincy
granite again.

“No business except authorship. I have got out one

small work, and am writing another.”
16
362 SEACLIFF.

“Humph! Do you publish your own books?”

“No sir,” returned I, remembering with some vanity that
the “Idler in Italy” had been accepted by the first house to
which it was offered.

“Very right, very right,” said he. “Don’t publish them ;
you'd be sure to lose, sir. By the way, you are the son of
Charles Fitz Hugh, the lawyer, who died some ten years
ago, eh?”

“TI am, sir. I believe my family is a thoroughly respect-
able one.”

“Don’t care a straw for respectable families, sir. Every
man is respectable for himself, or contemptible for himself.
Your father was respectable. I knew him. Fine man.
Clever man. Was climbing the ladder fast. Pity he died
just when he did. If you are half the man that he was, I
am glad to know you.”

There was a silence of half a minute, during which the
old gentleman leaped up and paced the office in an eager,
nervous way, like a hyena pitching backward and forward in
his cage. He was thinking, perhaps, that sons-in general,
nowadays, were not half the men that their fathers were,
witness Westervelt, junior.

“Well, sir,—about the marriage?” I ventured to inquire.

“ Oh—ah—certainly. You are-a man of: business,: sir.’
‘What does my granddaughter say?”

“She says, Yes.”

“Settled then. Go along, and arrange the matter with
her. By the way, staying in town? Dine with us this
afternoon, at five, number 40, St. Joseph’s Place. Good-
morning, sir.”

He shook my hand with a small, hard, nut-cracker grasp,
and then nodded three or four times very briskly as I backed
out of the doorway. I walked away with a swing, feeling
as if the paving-stones were set on springs, and danced
polkas of gladness' under my feet ; as if the Quincy granite
stores shone upon me with a sort of petrified beneficence, and
WESTERVELT, SENIOR. 363

uttered a ponderous millionaire benediction on my nuptial
prospects. In securing the consent of Westervelt, senior, I
had secured the consent of the universe, so far at least as
concerned the family of Seacliff.

On reaching the Astor House I found a note from Wester-
velt, junior, in which he apologized for his unexpected depar-
ture, informed me that he had gone to Seacliff, hoped he
should have the pleasure of seeing me there at my. conveni-
ence, expressed his regards, &c. &e. His language was
elaborately civil, that was certain; but his conduct, was, to
say the least, not remarkably affectionate. He is gone, I
thought, to make a last desperate intercession with Mary, in
favor of Bob and his two hundred thousand. I did not feel
much frightened, however ; for in the first place I had perfect
confidence in the faith of my little girl; and in the second,
had not Quincy granite, senior, a man whose words were
rocks, told me that it was settled ?

At a quarter to five I was ringing at the door of No. 40,
St. Joseph’s Place. The house was an isolated one, lofty and
large-fronted enough, but with an exterior of plain brick,
which to my mind did not by any means adequately repre-
sent six millions. An elderly, withered English waiter, whose
dry red cheeks threw his small white whiskers into shining
relief, inducted me-into a monstrous parlor, chiefly remark-
able for being furnished with carved oak instead of the usual
rosewood and mahogany. In a small, low rocking-chair sat
one of those smooth, mild, white, placid old ladies who some-
how remind one of an untroubled dish of blanc-mange. She
rose at my entrance and advanced two or three steps to meet
me, smiling upon me the while with a bland, sedative, kindly
welcome. Her very silks were unruffled, and her spectacles
brimful of tranquil benevolence.

“Ts this Mr. Fitz Hugh?” she said in a quavering, pleas-
ant voice. “I am very glad to see you. Mr. Westervelt
will be in presently. Do sit down by me, and tell me all
about our folks at Seacliff.”
‘364 / s SEACLIFF.

I could have kissed her hand with gratitude for the sim-
ple, friendly sympathy which seemed to exhale from her
‘venerable presence, like’ perfume from a bunch of dried
flowers. Drawing a chair beside hers, I discoursed with
cheerful copiousness of the affairs and people of Seacliff,
while she listened with-a continual smile and a succession of
little satisfied nods, and once looked particularly knowing and
pleased, when I spoke of Miss Westervelt as Mary. Our
“conversation was interrupted by the appearance of‘a suit of
black drap deté, stiff and bolt upright with the person of
Westervelt, senior.

“Ha! Mr. Fitz Hugh! there you are,’ ” said he, with his
usual positiveness.

I admitted the charge by a bow, and, while he shook
hands with me, smiled in my torments, with the constancy
of a Pawnee at the stake.

“Glad to see you, sir,” he continued. “ You'll always be
welcome, sir, in the house of Westervelt, senior. Dare say,
though, you'd much rather be with one of the Westervelt,
juniors, ha ha ha,—ha ha ha!”

He had a gigantic voice, disproportionately big for his
small body, and a laugh of corresponding power, brazen and
clamorous as a flourish of trombones. In short, he was a
very resonant, sonorous old gentleman, who made noises as
naturally as a ‘bell or a cannon, and who perpetually re-
minded me, by some absurd process of association, of that
war-horse described in Job, whose neck was clothed in thun-
der, and who said Ha ha! among the trumpets. It was
‘curious to contrast this dry, wiry, abrupt, resounding, domi-
neering man, with the white, bland, benignant, peaceful,
purling dame with whose life his had been mingled for more
than half a century.

The wilted, froze-and-thawed English waiter, soon an-
nounced that dinner was ready. Mrs. Westervelt took my
arm, and we descendéd to the basement dining-room, while
the senior drew his handkerchief and trumpeted behind us
WESTERVELT,. SENIOR. 365

like a mad elephant. Here was the same weighty oaken
furniture as above, a well-spread table, plenty of old silver,
a decanter of port, (as strong as poison,) a decanter of sherry,
and a second English waiter, who looked like the first one
padded. Mr. Westervelt said an emphatic grace, in which
he blessed things abundantly, pretty much on his own re-
sponsibility. For some time the conversation lay chiefly
between his wife and myself, Her warm old heart evidently
went out on wings of love foward her offspring at Seacliff;
and, as I was, if possible, still more interested there, we
wheeled untiringly round the subject, like two birds round
-their nest. In the mean time her husband ate heartily and
without much cumber of ceremony. He was clearly one of
your strenuous old-fashioned people, who fight all novelties
of custom and manner simply because they are novelties,
and who, for instance, will die of starvation sooner than eat
with a silver fork. His own three-tined one of steel was used
boldly and commented on with ostentation. His taciturnity
disappeared after he had moistened his Quincy granite with
half a pint of that corrosive sublimate, labelled Port, and he
struck into the dialogue with such a power and originality of
execution that he very soon played a solo.

“My wife makes a deal of fuss about this little affair of
yours, sir,” said he. “One would take you to, be the first
man that ever fell in love. How women can interest them-
selves so furiously in such an old story as love-making, I
can’t imagine. But they do; they always do; they never
get over it. There’s my wife, sir; she’s so old that I’m
ashamed to name the figure ; and yet she’s as aye tickled
with your engagement as she was with her own.”

Mr. Westervelt, like many other eccentric men, deficient
in early social culture, was in the habit of making jokes at
his wife’s expense. She was neither offended at it nor em-
barrassed by it, but sat placidly listening and smiling, an
obsequious worshipper of her spouse, and accustomed to
endure all. his changeful moods without a thought of retalia-
tion or remonstrance. a :
366 , SEACLIFF.

“Now I, sir,” he continued, “I have interested myself in
the’ subject ; but coolly, like a man of business. I have not
had hysterics over the affair, but I have seen to it as care-
fully as I would to a cargo of tea. Sent down for your book
last evening at seven o'clock, and made Mrs. W. read it
‘through before she went to bed, to see what you could do
in the writing line.”

“No, my dear, I ‘didn’t read it through. But I eal’ a
good deal of it,—enough to like it very much. , read. it till
my eyes ached, and I had to stop.” —

“Till your’ spectacles ached,” replied her husband ; and
then he laughed with the power of a full orchestra: it was
evidently one of his best and oldest jokes. “Her eyes never
ache, Mr. Fitz Hugh; it’s always her spectacles; they are
getting infirm, ha ha ha, ha ha ha!—Well, sir; that wasn’t
all. I sent off two clerks and my man John to inquire about
you. Knew all about you before nine o’clock this morning.
Knew all your rogueries and bad resorts, sir. When you
came, I was all ready for you; could have tripped you up
and confounded you in a minute, sir.”

From all this, two conclusions appeared distinctly : first,
that Westervelt, junior, had been to see his father about me
and my suit, the evening previous; second, that the elder
gentleman had taken the matter entirely into his own hands,
and that his decision might be considered final. As that de-
cision had been favorable to me, F was of course in the hap-
piest frame, and listened to his boisterous humor with as
smiling a reverence as if I were his wife.

“Tm glad the girl had sense enough to sack that Bob Van
Leer,” he resumed. “TI detest those Van Leers. My son
was a fool to marry one of the breed.”

“Why, Mr. Westervelt!” pleaded his dame very meekly.

“T say he is a fool,” affirmed Mr. Westervelt loudly. “I
can’t forgive him for it either. He’s to blame for it, because
he wasn’t born a fool. He makés a fool of himself, Mrs. W.;
look at all his speculations ; every bull tosses him and every
WESTERVELT, SENIOR. 367

bear hugs him. Why, he hasn’t even the ability to govern
his own household,” stormed the old man, swelling up with
the delightful consciousness that he governed his. “ That
family is in a bad Way, what with drinking Van Leers and
gambling. Somervilles. It wants some one to rule it with a
rod of iron, You are the man, sir; it’s your duty. I hope
you "ll take firm hold and do what: my son can’t and won’t,—
turn out the whole mob of lazy, rascally men-about-town, and
purify the family altar, sir, shake up the old lares and what-
de-ye-callems to their duty, sir!”
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVIL

OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS.

selection of a diamond ring. How difficult I was to

suit, and how fearful that the one I decided upon was
not handsome enough, was not fashionable, would not please
her! The little talisman made the journey short, and made
all things among which I passed invisible, so that: I seemed
to arrive at Seacliff swifter than thought, unconscious of the
cars, of the stations, of the landscape, or of any fellow-trav-
eller beside the ticket-seeking conductor. At Rockford a
change came over my enchantment in the shape of an. an-
cient, jolting hack, which transported me with more noise
than speed ‘to the house of Pa Treat, where I awoke with
some difficulty to the realities of washing and dressing.

At the garden gate of Seacliff I met Bob Van Leer.
I was about to pass him with a customary nod, when I was
arrested by the intense expression which - -transfigured his
usually torpid visage. If the languid moon had suddenly
shone out with the dazzling strength of the sun, I could
hardly have been more surprised than I was to see in his
face such a passion of reproach, and grief, and anger. I
felt like a monstrous hypocrite when I asked him, with an
assumption of innocence, “ Bob, what’s the matter?”

At first he did not speak, probably because he could not,
for a tide of blood set into his cheeks and his features worked

al: hour of the next morning was consecrated to the
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 369

violently, like the waters of a disturbed sea. He glanced
successively at my feet, at the Sound, at the sky; then tore
off a rose-branch and pulled it in pieces; then burst out on
me in capitals.

“Oh! you don’t know what’s the matter. You're mighty
ignorant, all at once. JZ know what it is. What do you
think? It’s her.” (With a wild fling of his hand toward the
house.) “You know that it’s about her. What else do I care
for? You’ve got her. So that’s-what you’ve been stay-
ing here for! Why didn’t you tell me so before, and not
let me go on making a fool of myself? Oh, it’s precious
mean !”

Here his strong voice sank struggling down, like a dying
gladiator while the tears forced their way through his thick
eyelashes. Let us have pity for the simple souls that cannot
‘adequately plead their own cause and utter their own suffer-
ings, but stand before us with blind weeping or mere dumb,
anguished silence. How little sympathy we are apt to ac-
cord them when they need and therefore deserve so much !
Often since that moment has the woe-begone face which poor
Robert wore risen up to haunt my hours of serenest content,
and obtained a compassion which just then I could not afford.
It is an accusing face, and seems to demand that I should
render some stern verdict against myself, although in my
heart I know that I am not guiltily the cause of its sorrow.

“Not mean, Bob!” said I. “ You can’t be in earnest
there. Come, you forget that you gave me liberty to ask for
her ; that you begged me to save her from Somerville,” I
added, trying to smile it off. i
_ “Ob! it’s mighty pretty to bring that up,” he replied, not
in the least mitigated. “That's mighty cunning, that is.
But it don’t signify. No use talking. I’m going. I shan’t
stay here. Take her and keep her. I shall quit this blasted
place forever.”

He flung away from me and marched down the hill with

great strides, not once looking back. I watched him for ten
16 *
370 ; SEACLIFF.

seconds; it was all that I could grant to his grief in the
selfishness of .my joy; then I hurried into the house.

Miss Westervelt sat by a window, her face bent over a
trifle of embroidery, her long eyelashes pencilling her cheek
with little halos of fine shadow, and her blonde hair made
golden by splashes of sunlight which fell upon it through the
interstices of fluttering vine-leaves. She looked more than
ever like a girlish Madonna,.except that as I entered. she
blushed into a beauty: beyond the possibilities of any pictured
Mary. A smile and a little nod was all the salutation that
I got or wanted. Seating myself on an ottoman near her,
I watched her in silence until she looked up with another
smile, half amused, half embarrassed, and asked, “ Well, how
do-you do this afternoon? Is that what you are waiting for
me to say?”

“JT have seen your grandpapa,” said J. “I have had a
‘talk with Westervelt, senior.” - See

“T hope you liked him,” she replied, trying to laugh, but
not succeeding well. 8

“ He treated me very badly,” I went on. “He seems to
be a man of the severest character.”

The color flew into her face, but she made no answer, and
resumed her embroidery with an appearance of great industry
and: absorption. : ee

“But he came round,” I added. “TI finally had to admit
that he is the tenderest-hearted old gentleman that ever lived.”

She threw down her work and burst. into a fit of laughter
-that was almost convulsive ;. the blue veins in her neck and
temples swelled, and the rosy blood bloomed from chin to
forehead ;. she leaned back in her chair and tried to hide her
face in her tiny, trembling fingers.

“He was obliged to have recourse to his handkerchief
before I left him,’ I continued. :

“Oh, don’t make me laugh so!” she begged. “I can’t
help it; ‘it’s so ridiculous! Please don’t cut jokes on my
grandpapa.” .
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 371

“Well, listen then. I'll tell you every word that was said ;
every word that I said to him, and every word that he said
to me.”

“No, no! don’t do that!” she exclaimed, blushing again.
“T won't hear all ; no, not every word.”

Little by little, however, I got out the whole story, very
much as things actually happened. As any other woman
would .have done, she listened eagerly to the end, sometimes
flushing as I recounted my confessions. and declarations, some-
times: laughing irrepressibly at her grandfather’s granitic re-
sponses. In my masculine inexperience and stupidity, I did
not then comprehend that this merriment was more than half
hysterical, and could not guess that, as soon as I left her, she
would shut herself up in her room and give way to that
necessity of over-excited womanhood, a hearty cry.

«J had just finished my tale when a servant brought in a
large letter, enveloped in business-like drab, addressed to
Miss Westervelt. ‘

“Let me take the letter,’ I said, when she had read it
twice over and was about to put it away in her pocket.

“No, no! . is from grandpapa; it is private. I musn’t
give it to you.”

Whether she gave it to me or not, I soon had it, and —
it is.

“Miss Mary WESTERVELT :— ‘

“ Dear Grandchild,—Mr. Louis Fitz Hugh has called on
me and requested your hand in marriage. I am pleased
with his statements, as well as his appearance; and, from
what I can learn concerning him, I infer that you have made
a good choice and shown your usual discretion. Your father
having left me to decide concerning the acceptance of Mr.
Fitz Hugh’s suit, I take pleasure in saying that I see no
sufficient objection to it, and that I shall be happy to welcome

-him into our family. I must inform you, however, that his
income is small, and that, if you marry him, you must make
872 SEACLIFF.

up your mind to economy. But this will be all the better for
you. I should despise a girl who would draw back from a
marriage on this account. Economy is not only a virtue, but
a talent; and you ought to be proud to show that you are.
capable of it.

“Seize an early opportunity to visjt us, and bring Gen-;
evieve with you... My girlish old wife is frightfully excited
about your affair, and wants to talk a great deal of soft non-.
sense to you under the name of good advice. I am de-:
bating whether to send her to a boarding-school or a lunatic
asylum.

“ Present our respectful regards to Mr. Fitz Hugh, and our
usual remembrances to the family.

“ Yours affec.
“J. WESTERVELT.”

“ A remarkably sensible letter,” said I; “although the first
half sounds as if it must have been written at the counting-.
house.”

“One of the kindest letters,—the very kindest,—that we
ever got from grandpapa,” she murmured, looking happy and
grateful.

I quietly imprisoned: the hand that was extended to receive
the bit of paper; and before she could withdraw it, the ring,
the jewelled circlet of promise, was on the engagement finger.

“ How resolved you are!” she tried to speak, but could
only whisper. “Oh! I hope you will never repent of it.”

It never once occurred to me as singular that we should be-
left alone for two hours or more, until a noise of wheels and
voices announced that the rest of the family had returned
from some excursion.

“They have been to ‘the fair at Rockford, ” explained
Mary.

“Why didn’t you go!” I inquired, smiling, perhaps con-
ceitedly.

“You are very saucy, You think that I stayed because.

*
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 373

I expected you,” she replied, blushing. “I wanted to finish
this work, you see.”

“Oh! how glad Iam that you didn’t lose a fair on my
account,” E observed.

“ Are you offended?” she asked, raising her eyes quickly.
“T will tell you why I stayed, some day.” °—

“But the ring,” said I, remembering that she had not
once looked at: it. “Does it please you? Iwill exchange
it.” ; wis

“Oh, no! don’t exchange it,” she answered, glancing at it
hastily as if frightened to see it there. “It is beautiful. One
large stone. I like 7 a great deal better than a cluster. It
is such a pretty ring.” Hy

I fancy that almost every young man is anxious about the
style of his engagement ring, and that every true-hearted,
loving girl admires hers, no matter what its fashion.

Mrs. Westervelt seemed to divine our secret immediately
that she entered the room, notwithstanding that I saluted her
with a solemn politeness which I thought the perfection of
dissimulation. Perhaps she caught a glimpse of the telltale
ring, for women are quick in spying out objects of that na-
ture. Giving mea slight pressure of the hand in passing,
she advanced smilingly to Mary, kissed her, and then, with-
out a word, tripped out of the parlor.’ Her cheek grew
girlish again with color, and the weary expression so com-
min on her face gave way to a look of happy sympathy, which
seemed to lift ten years off her forehead and much sin off her ’
soul.

Genevieve showed the same instinctive recognition of what -
had happened, but in a different way. She gave us a side’
glance through the door as she passed it, but turned quickly -
when Mary raised her eyes toward her, and hurried up stairs
without nodding or speaking. I believe that most young and -
impressible natures dread to exchange the first look with a
loved familiar face which has just been touched, and, as it
were, transformed by a new and mighty emotion, a solemn
874 SEACLIFF.

and eternal vow. Let no one wonder that the two girls cried
together before they went to sleep; for love had made them
one ever since they were children; and here, suddenly, was
something which. divided them, so that they could never more
be to each other all that they had been.

Next came Mrs. Van Leer ; bold, self- possessed, gay, flip-
pant; the feminine impersonation of sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals; never had her low-necked: conversation
and manner struck me so disagréeably. Entering with flirt
and flutter of ostentatiously displayed embroidery, she made
us a low mock courtesy, and then, handing her parasol to
Somerville, sank languishingly on the sofa, while the wrought
skirts were artistically disordered. Next it was, “I am dy—
ing of heat: Do fan me, Mr. Somerville. Why isn’t my
hus—band here to do it. Mr. Fitz Hugh, if you ever should
marry, do try to love your wife better than your hor—ses.”

She threw off her scarf. presently, exposing her neck and
shoulders. She had a.passion for low. dresses, which she
gratified on every occasion sanctioned by fashion, and to the
most dizzying verge of propriety. Hoydenish, thoughtless,
vain, and knowing well, I suppose, that her form was hand-
somer than her face, she could not be contented unless the
world had at least a suspicion of the grace which a cruel
civilization insisted on obscuring. She leaned her head on
her hand now, and her elbow on a scroll of the sofa, regard-
less of the position and glances of Somerville. He stood
near her, almost touching her bare arm, plying the fan with
an air of assiduous politeness, but bending on her a long
steady stare, so sensual and at the same time so contemp-
tuous, that if she had seen it, I think she would have drawn
away from him in both fear and anger. Probably Mary
did not understand what I understood, but fearing that she
might, and wishing to release her from such a scene, I bade
them all good evening.

It was not till the next morning that I saw Mr. Wester-
velt. He walked out to the garden gate to meet me, and.
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 375

shook both. my -hands with an earnestness which really seemed
a little like good-will. “Well!” he smiled, “I find that
everything is settled. I am most happy to welcome you as a
member of my-family. I am satisfied—that is to say, grati-
fied with the course things have taken; though, as you
perhaps perceived, it was at first a surprise to me. But
walk in, sir, walk in; you will find them all there.”

He was willing to be polite to me, it seems, for lack of
ability.to get rid of me. Had Westervelt, senior, bribed him
for me with a loan or an indorsement, or had he drifted over
to my side on the languid, timorous current of his own feeble-
ness ? ‘

Henry Van Leer was smoking his three consecutive after-
breakfast cigars in the veranda. The others were in the
parlor; the two married ladies discussing the figures of a
quadrille; Somerville talking Ruskin to Mary, who lis-
tened unresponsively, and as if at a great distance; Robert
seeking. revenge for his rejection, according to the im-
memorial stupid custom of disappointed lovers, by paying
loud and ostentatious court to Genevieve. At sight of
me seating myself beside Mary, the poor fellow’s assumed
bravery departed, his fine bass voice faltered into silence,
and he unobservedly melted from our presence. He had
fallen from his paradise, poor Robert; the flaming swords
were shining in the gate; and he must wander away. In
the last afternoon train of that day he took his eternal
departure from Seacliff, carrying with him, I doubt not, a
portmanteau of sorrows, big enough to fill any baggage-car
of any supposable spiritual railroad. How many people pass
us daily in the world, laden with heavy burdens which few
can see and none can unloose! Of all his fellow passen-
gers, was there one who, glancing over the young fellow’s
expressionless brcad face and burly frame, divined that
under his gray travelling waistcoat of latest fashion there
lay a heart of which the pulsations were like the throbs of
a wound ? -
376 SEACLIFF.

“Tm bound for Europe,” said he, wofully smiling at us
from the carriage. “I don’t know as I shall ever see any
of you again. Good-bye, all. Good-bye, Mary.”

He was so sad, so humble, so forgiving, when he thus put
out his hand for the last time, that she turned pale and looked
conscience-stricken as if she had done him some wrong. I
know that after him went forth soft wings of pity, which
would have veiled his past and borne him into some happy
future, if kindness were omnipotence.. When he disappeared
beneath the brow of the hill, she glided soberly into the house
alone. I did not follow her immediately, but stopped to talk
with Genevieve, who, having seen Robert off with extreme
indifference, was about to take a course of novel-reading in
one of the grape-arbors. She could look me in the face now,
and she began gayly upon the engagement.

“Come in, brother Louis. So you have got my sister at
last? Don’t you think it was mean in you to cut out poor
Robert? Why didn’t you ask for me, who had no beau?”

“Because you don’t want a beau. Because you are too
young for such things.”

“Young? Nonsense! J am not so much younger than
Mary. I am seventeen, and she is only nineteen. You
think then that I am too young to love, or to be loved, by a
man of your prodigious maturity?” =

“Exactly; just my humble opinion ; don’t you agree to it?”

“No, sir!” she answered with amusing indignation. “I
am old enough to appreciate,—yes, to love,—a man of twice
your years and brains.”

My old suspicion that she was interested in Somerville
returned, at least to my memory. Z

“Tt is no compliment to your own brains if you are doing
it,” I said, watching her closely.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, while the spirit
of Westervelt, senior, flashed out of her blue-gray eyes,
“Do you mean to say that I am in love with any person
much older than you? You are not my brother-in-law yet.
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 377

‘You Tee no right to pry into my secrets,—supposing I have
any.”

ae Genevieve, I do not pry into them. If they come to my
knowledge, it is because you expose them by your own ac-
tions. You cast them batons me,—like pearls before swine,
I suppose you would say.”

“No, no! I don’t do that,,do I?” she replied hastily.
“ You ‘don’t mean to say that people suspect me of being
?”

“Of being fascinated with Somerville?” I concluded the
sentence for her.

_ “No, not that!” she said, scowling as if at something re-
pulsive. “You don’t mean seriously to say that you suspect
me of that?”

“ Genevieve, I don’t mean to say anything unkind to you.
I like -you very much, and wish you every happiness. I dis-
like Somerville excessively, and believe him to be a wicked
man. I did once suspect you of being influenced by him,
and I want you to make me happy by telling me that I was
mistaken.”

“ Look here,” she said, with childlike simplicity, as if she
were about to take her heart out of her breast and show it
tome. “ When Mr. Somerville first began to visit us here,
before you came, I used to like him very well. Why, it was
quite natural. He is a handsome man and a very fascinating
man ; and, although he is thirty-seven, he dpes not. look thirty.
Then too, there was no one else to think about. Poor. Robert
was dead in love with sister, and besides, he was not clever
enough to suit me, though he is a good soul and I am sorry
for him. So it was to be expected that I should fancy the
society of Mr. Somerville, and should think him a very at-
tractive gentleman. But that is all gone by; yes, long ago;
two months, three months ago. Mary beat it out of me.
She could not bear him, and could not bear to have me talk
to him. Mary is wonderfully clever, I can tell you: wise as
a serpent, if she is harmless as a dove: you needn’t think

 
378 ’ SEACLIFF.

that you have got a simpleton whom you can twist around,
your finger. She has helped me out of many little scrapes ;
and she kept me from getting into this big one. So you may
be perfectly tranquil about me on the score of Mr. Somer-.
ville. I know a great deal more about him than you do, and
I dislike him worse than you possibly can. If I were papa,”
she added, nodding her: head. repeatedly and emphatically,
“if I were papa, I would not have such a man here; I
would, put him out of the house before night, bag and bag-
gage.”

“Tam much obliged to you, dear Genevieve,” aa ee giv-
ing her hand a Depttenly kiss. “You are very kind in being
so frank to me.”

“ Well, go along now and talk to sister.—Console her for
the loss of Robert,” she called as I mounted the steps. _

Poor: Robert! By the next evening I was installed in
that very room where he had so often listened with drowsy
delight to the indistinct murmur of Mary’s voice in the op-
posite chamber.

Now came two or three days durtie which Mrs. Van Leer
and Somerville flirted perpetually. It was a wonder to me
‘that her husband did not notice it; but he was doubly shield-
ed from suspicion by a good conscience and a. stupid brain.
Mrs. Westervelt watched the two triflers gravely at times,
.but not with a seeming of jealousy. The suspicion crossed
my mind that she had got wearied of Somerville’s influence,
whatever its nature might be, and was glad to see him di-
verted from herself, at no matter what cost to others. Mary
and Genevieve treated him with a daily increasing coldness,
which he pretended not to.notice. His bearing toward the
girls had changed greatly since my arrival at Seacliff; then
he was polite, indeed, but blandly patronizing and almost
-parental: now he affected profound respect and the very
humility of ‘gallantry. ‘With Mrs. Westervelt he rarely
talked much in the house, but occasionally walked with her
in the garden, always apart, glancing around to see if any
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 379

one were near, gentle in tone and gesture, but with transient
gleams of cruelty in his look. So full of pain and fear and
desperation was her face as she listened, that at times she
could not compose it to meet us, but had to leave him and
hurry off alone.

Amid all this earnestness of inexpressible passion, this
love and hatred and despair and woe, Mrs. Van Leer con-
tinued -her ‘unmeaning, purposeless, doll-like coquetries.
Twenty-seven years old as she was, the woman’s heart had
not yet reached the age of puberty. But the current of
emotion which was flowing stronger and stronger, daily
through the family life, influenced even her so far as to make
her show forth one feeling of respectable vigor; a sarcastic
pettishness toward Mary and myself began to flavor her soda-
water conversation. JI had never given her thin, frothy
character credit for possessing such a body of spleen, such
a rich bouquet of sauce. Whether her spiteful manner re-
sulted from the malicious incitations of Somerville, or from
personal indignation at me, because I had left the shrine
where her plump shoulders and neat ankles demanded wor-
ship, I would not dare to decide.

One morning Mary was confined to her room by a violent
headache, and therefore my stay in the parlor had been wea-
‘isome dulness and abstraction. *We were a divided family
now, with separate secrets, separate suspicions and purposes,
responding to no common sympathy, and always failing when
we tried to open a general conversation. Mrs. Westervelt
‘was in the veranda with her cousin Henry; Mrs. Van Iseer
‘gigeled and chattered infinite platitudes to Somerville on the
sofa in the front parlor; Genevieve sat near me, embroid-
ering soberly, and only now and then disturbing my lan-
guor with some torpid, dreamy reminiscence of Europe.
Thus I journeyed for more than an hour in one of those
subjective accommodation-trains that we call a revery, gaz-
ing idly out of the windows of my spirit car, and conscious
occasionally that my-eyes had rested for a good while on Mrs.
3880 3 ‘SEACLIFF.

Van Leer. She, too, seemed to notice it, and exchanged sev-
eral whispers with Somerville, intermixed with quick defiant
glances at me. Finally he left her, came smilingly to Gene-
vieve, and asked if she would do him the favor to take a turn
with him in the veranda...

“ No, thank you,” was her cool reply. “I must go and sit
with Mary. ‘Good-night, Louis.”

She went up stairs directly, and he sauntered away alone.
As soon'as the room was clear of listeners, Mrs. Van Leer
came at me with a look which was quite equivalent to a box
on the ear.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh,” she said, sneeringly, “you behave a
little too much like a police detective. You have-been watch-
ing me all this evening.”

“Not at all,” replied I, indignant at the charge. “I-shall
leave that arduous duty to your husband.”

“ He has no need of watching me,” she whispered, redden-
ing from chin to forehead. “ How gallant you are! I really
must compliment you on your stock of impudence.”

“Oh, Madame!” said I, “ and I am so far your inferior !”

She tried to reply, but her anger choked her into a fit of
coughing ; and at last, turning short, she rustled out of the
parlor and away to her bedroom. From that hour Mrs. Van
Leer and I were on terms of the most intimate disagreement.
She could never keep her feeble anger to herself, but, like all
shallow saucepans, boiled over, stormy with steam and bubble,
on the slightest provocation.

dn the mean time I knew, although I saw them not, that
there were plenty of secret tears in the life of Seacliff. Have
you never walked in early morning through summer woods,
and heard dew-drops fall, one by one, separately, slowly, be-
hind you, on either side, before you, without seeing one in its
descent, nor being able to note the bough from which it
parted? Or have you not heard a mournful soughing of
wind among the tree-tops in a particular spot, and, on reach-
ing it, found the branches all stiffened again, and the leaves
OPEN PLEASURES AND SECRET SORROWS. 381

motionless ?. There are passings without footsteps ; invisible
presences and audible vanishings ; voices which, when you lis-
ten to them turn to silence. You think almost that there are
Spirits in the air who mock you, or who long to communicate
with you and cannot. Just so vague and transitory were the
‘signs of misery that I could detect in the existence around me.
In distant rooms I heard tones sharp with anger or broken with
dejection, but could not tell positively whose they were, nor
why they thus thrilled with passion. The lids that drooped
at my ‘approach, as if ‘to hide tears, were raised in a moment
from eyes full of calmness and seeming merriment. People
who walked slowly, pensively, and sadly together, quickened
their footsteps at the sound of mine, and, smiling in my face,
gathered bouquets for me. I could see all this now that I
knew the mystery, although, before, the same things had
passed athwart my vision invisible.

At last I resolved that I had a right to question Mary con-
cerning this miserable secret, and learn its exact nature, so
that I might go to work advisedly to break its cruel hold upon
the family. She admitted that there was a mystery, but she
implored me earnestly not to ask her to reveal it; and when
I insisted, she calmly told me that just now she could do me
only one kindness, and that was to free me. Of course I got
-quite indignant at this offer ; and so she laid her head against
my shoulder and cried. I had just begged a reconciliation
and tranquillized her, when we heard wheels and a voice that
sounded like Robert’s.

“Ts it possible?” I laughed. “ Has Bob’s eternity ended ?”

We ran to the window and looked:down the pathway.
There, sure enough, was Bob, waving his Kossuth hat toward
us, and trying to hide some little shame at his faint-hearted
return under a bravado of cheery running and shouting. His
full chest had not hollowed perceptibly, nor had his broad face
shrunk, nor his thick, brown locks whitened. Behind him
came, a hackman and his subaltern, staggering under the two
enormous trunks which a week before had been so solemnly
382 SEACLIFF.

and laboriously packed for a residence of a cycle or two in
Europe.

“ Hullo!” exclaimed Bob, beaming upon us with. mingled
joy and sheepishness, like the sun shining through a fog.
“How d’ye do, Mary? How are you, old feller? Well,
I couldn’t go it, nohow. I had to come back. I s’pose you
an’t glad to see me, though.”

“Ob, yes we are, Robert,” said Mary, shaking both his
hands, and laughing kindly in his anxious face. “I am de-
lighted to see you, and so will the rest be. We missed you,
Robert.” : :

“That's you, Mary! that’s you. You are a real good girl,
you are, and it’s very kind of you,—God bless you, Mary !”

Thé tears came into the big brown eyes again; and hé
stood staring at her with the fond look of a good dog who
watches his master; not a particle of egotistic reserve in it,
but all humility, adoration, and self-sacrifice. After paying
the hack over-generously, he dropped into a chair and told
his story, so brief, so melancholy, so laughable! He had taken
passage for Liverpool, in a ‘packet, hoping to prevent’ con-
sumption by the long voyage; but had lost his courage off
Sandy Hook, forfeited his money, and returned to New York
in the tug-boat. The next morning, unable to keep away
from Seacliff any longer, he had, as he phrased it, “ come
back to make friends with us all, and ask pardon for his fool-
ishness.” He presently brought out a handsome set of Nea-
politan corals for Mary, and then made her laugh and blush
together by begging that he might be one of her bridesmaids
—no, confound it! groomsmen. His square jaw dropped a
quarter of an inch when he learned. that I had taken his
room, but he would not hear to my leaving it, and immedi-
ately set about installing himself in my old apartment at Pa
Treat’s.
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVIIL

TRYING TO BELL THE CAT.

of counting-house origin, and directed in the high,

strong handwriting of Westervelt, senior. Breaking
a vast seal, so broad and red that it made me think of the
front of a brick store, I laid wenden eyes on the following
pugnacious epistle.

ae RECEIVED a letter in a yellow envelope, evidently

“Mr. Firz Huew:

“ Dear Sir,—I find that my son has not yet: turned out that
rascally Somerville, and dares not do it. I beg and insist
that you take immediate measures to send him adrift, even if
you and the gardener-have to kick him off. He is sucha
notorious, dirty rogue that his mere presence is enough to
ruin the name of a decent family; and, in addition, I find
that he has set afloat some scandalous stories concerning my
son’s wife. Oust him instanter. Break his bones if neces-
sary. I will pay all damages. My son, by my desire, will
be at Seacliff to-morrow, and will support you with his au-
thority, whatever that may amount to.

“Very Respect’Y Yours,
“J, WESTERVELT.”

Here was a, lively prospect. I should have to fight not
only Somerville, a host in himself, but Mrs. Van Leer and
384 SEACLIFF.

*perhaps Mrs. Westervelt. I had the girls, to be sure; and
the father would arrive to aid me with his feebleness ; but
what these fragile natures amounted to, the whole summer
had been witness: they had longed for months to drive Som-
erville away, and had not dared attempt it. Indeed, the lon-
ger I thought of the man’s astounding impudence in sticking
to a household. where he was so suspected and hated, the
more likely it seemed that he would fight a desperate battle,
and sell us a victory that would perhaps ruin the Westervelt
name. After a long cogitation, it seemed best to see him
alone, with the object of getting him out of the ‘fortress by.
diplomacy ; and so, touching his arm as we dispersed from
the dinner-table, I requested in a whisper that he would
grant me a few moments of private conversation. Assenting
with civil leer, he followed me to my room, threw himself on
the sofa, lit a cigar, and waited my pleasure, smoking with
the most urbane tranquillity. I also took a few whiffs at a
cheroot, feeling that I needed some occupation of that sort to
hide my agitation.

“Mr. Somerville,” I said at last, “I am afraid you would
think it quite odd if I should ask you what you are staying
here for.”

“You are a wonderfully clever person, Mr. Fitz Hugh,”
he replied, assuming the offensive. “You have a natural tact
for divining people’s feelings. I should think it quite odd, as
you say; and moreover, I should be tempted io consider the
question slightly rustic.”

“ Nevertheless, I venture to put it. Certain strong reasons
oblige me to.” ;

“ There are no reasons that oblige me to answer,” said he. .
“Still, out of pure good nature,—out of mere sheer benig-
nity, observe—I will try to gratify you. I am staying here,
then; first because I have been invited to stay ; second, be-
cause I choose to stay. Any more inquiries to make?” he
continued, becoming a little insolent and common in his
manner. “ Don’t restrain your curiosity out of regard to my
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 885

feelings; they are too tough to be punctured by interrogation
points. As for politeness, that is a mere triviality, not worth
our attention, eh?” oS ae

“ You are not perhaps aware,” I resumed, without noticing
his sneers, “that your presence has given rise to reports inju-
rious to the character of one of the ladies of the family.”

“Not in the least. . How shocking ! My dear friend, you
pain me horribly. Don’t repeat that, I beseech you, as you
value my peace of mind.”

© Such reports exist, and I beg you to cotisider the fact
seriously and in the manner of a gentleman,” I went on.
“Your only honorable course, it seems to me, ‘is to leave the
house and keep away from if.” _

“ Pshaw ! nonsense! Come, be a man, Fitz Hugh. Let
us despise the tittle-tattle of a weak world. Our consciences
are pure as new milk, are they not? To be sure, we have
both flirted a little with Cousin Jule; but, after all, we have
kept our innocence. I shall remain and defy slander, sotto
losbergo di_sentirmi puro.”

“ And I, on the other hand, shall be obliged to urge your
departure,” said I. “Don’t be astonished, and don’t laugh :
it is a very plain case, and I am quite in earnest. Seriously,
Mr. Somerville, I must beg you to packs your trunk and be
off in a quiet way as soon as possible.”

“ Upon my honor you are a cool one,” be replied, throwing
down his cigar and fixing a broad stare on me. “Upon my
soul I can’t be angry with you, it is so supremely ridiculous.
What the devil gives you the : =e to govern the house in
this style?”

“Of course I speak as the future son-in-law of Mr. Wes-
tervelt.”

He took out his cigar-case, selected another regalia, lighted
it, and drew a few puffs, all with an air of placid pensive-'
ness.

“ Fitz Hugh,” he said at last, “I beg pardon,—I don’t wish
to hurt “your feelings—but I can’t help wondering that you

17
386 SEACLIFF.

engaged yourself to this young lady, handsome and amiable
as she is. You are not aware, perhaps, that to a young man
of your person, manners, family, and other advantages, it is
easy to approach girls in other ways than by marriage.”

I felt the blood simmer in my forehead, and rose with a
menace which was half involuntary; but he merely. waved
his hand deprecatingly, not offering to defend himself; and
so I could not strike him.

“T am not alluding to Miss Westervelt,” he said. I spoke
of girls in geheral. You hardly intend to champion the
whole sex, I presume. Did you suppose that I was alluding
to Miss Westervelt? What did you imagine that I could
possibly have to say against her? Do you think that I
would repeat any scandal of her, if I knew of ene. You
are entirely mistaken if that is your judgment of me.’

“Somerville, be careful of yourself. You know nothing
against Miss Westervelt; and if you intimate that you do, I
will throw you out of the window.”

When I made this disagreeable remark, so indicative in
general of an unhappy temper, I was in such a passion that
I could not hold my hands still, but kept twirling a mahogany
chair on its legs as if it were a top.

“T am silent,” he returned, drawing a sneer so fine that it
was almost invisible.

He watched me steadily all the while, and seeing now, per-
haps, that T was coming to the white heat of anger, he
dropped his libellous insinuations, and resumed the jesting
tone with which he had opened the conversation.

“So I am compromising Cousin Jule by my visits here,
am I? Why, Mr. Fitz Hugh, you might as well blame a
goose for compromising the fox that steals him. Doesn’t she
triumph over me? Doesn’t she run away with me? Isn’t
it a case of simple man-stealing? Answer me that, my dear
sir, you who have suffered in like manner.”

“It is not Mrs. Van Leer,” I replied, slowly, “It is Mrs.
Westervelt.”
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 3887

He sat up all at once, and for a moment stared. at me anx-
iously, with a deeper sincerity in his eyes than I had ever
seen in them before; but, in ten seconds more he had frozen
over again, and lay there as cold and calm and passionless
as a New Hampshire lake in midwinter.

“ Impossible, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” said he, knocking the ash
off his eigar. “This is a serious affair, really. But you
must be mistaken ; there cannot be any such unfortunate re-
ports as you speak of; the world, stupid as it, is, would not
point so entirely in the wrong direction.”

“ There are such reports,” I replied, infuriated by his talk
about “the wrong direction.” “ And the long and short of it
is, Somerville, that you ought to go, and you shall go, and go
directly. I will give you till to-morrow noon to get away.”

His eyes sparkled now, and .for the first time in our ac-
quaintance I saw a quick flame spring into his pale. olive
cheek, for in general his visage was fire-proof, and he never
blushed. “Young man,” said he, “ you will oblige me by dis-
continuing this jest. It has an impertinent look, and there
is not wit enough in it to make it endurable. I give you fair
warning that if you don’t drop the subject, I will make you
repent of it.”

“The subject cannot be dropped as long as you remain
-here,” I replied instantly. “I must insist on your departure
to-morrow. And if ‘you won’t leave the house of your own
aceord, F give you my word that I will put you out by force.”

“Damn your insolence!” he exclaimed, springing to his
feet and advancing a step toward me. “Damn you! what
do you mean by this ?”

T stood up and met him half way, the heavier man of
the two by a dozen pounds, full as muscular, and, I believe,
a good deal more combative.

“ Absurd!” he muttered, constraining himself and falling
back on the sofa, while the icy smile stole over his face again
although his hands trembled. “Can’t we settle this without
making Yankee Sullivans of ourselves? I beg pardon for
388 SEACLIFF.

the word insolence:—a damning, you know, is no insult.
Now then, what right have you to banish me in this despotic
style? This house belongs to Mrs. Westervelt; it is her
income which pays the housekeeping expenses ; 5 and it is by
her invitation that I am here. I have long been her friend,
and I was her lawyer for years. Is it by her authority that
you order me off in this cavalier fashion? And where.is
Mr. Westervelt all the while? Where is the natural and
legal man of the house?” i

I remained silent a moment, questioning whether I should
prove his guilt to his face by telling him what I had over-
heard of his private conversations with Mrs. Westervelt,
and by showing him the scandalous narrative, allusive to
her, which he had dictated to the Reporter. But I was un-
willing to expose myself to a charge of eavesdropping; I
disliked equally to push my needy literary friend into hos-
tilities with this unscrupulous scoundrel; and, besides, how
absurd to make an appeal to a seared. conscience and a
shameless soul! Falling back on the letter of Westervelt,
senior, I handed it to him, saying, “ There is my authority.”

If the reader will please to take another glance at that
vigorous missive, he can easily imagine, I think, the suffocat-
ing disgust and wrath of the “dirty rogue,” as he read it.
He bore the torture like a martyr, however, only turning
» ghastly white, as he glanced over the evil epithets and the
order for his ignominious expulsion, and uttering no word
until he bad handed back the letter. Then his wicked laugh
burst forth, lifting the short upper lip, and exposing those two
long front teeth, which gleamed like tusks through his mous-
tache.

“T will teach Westervelt, senior,—I will teach the whole
rabble of you, that I am not to be driven,” he cried, huskily.
“T could crush this family. I have it in my power. I could
drive it from society. _From this time—all of you—keep
silent ! leave me alone! or I will make you wish yourselves
in hell. As for you, my lad, you and your gardener, I warn
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 389

you not to lay a finger on me. I carry pistols, and I swear
to God that I will be the death of you if you touch me. And
now—lastly—once for all—I tell you that I will stay here as
long as you stay—as long as I choose. Do you hear me ?—
understand me ?”

He made me think of an enraged tiger, he was so hand-
some, so graceful, and at the same time looked so devilishly
wicked and cruel. The-contrast between his usual smooth
gentility of demeanor, and his present animal ferocity was
immense and stupefying. People who have only known the
man as a sublimated fashionable of fascinating manners and
conversation, who have merely seen him jesting at table, or
smiling through a drawing-room, would find it hard to believe
that he had in him so much of the wild beast. His voice
was scarcely human, and his features swollen, in this moment
of full liberty that he had granted to his passions. He at-
tempted no violence, however, and made no gesture of attack,
but only glared on me a moment, and then left the room
before I could recover my wits to act or answer.

The interview had been far more’ lively than agreeable or
satisfactory. I had been villainously defied and baffled; and
in return I had only been able to insult Somerville ; that is
to say, supposing I could insult such an invulnerable black-
guard ; for when a man is already in the gutter, it is clearly
impossible to kick him down stairs. I paced my room for an.
hour, revolving various plans for getting rid of him, but dis-
covering no better expedient than the shoulder-hitting idea
of Westervelt, senior. Downright fisticuffs, however, I would
reserve to the last extremity; and, meantime, I would keep
silence concerning both the altercation and its causes. I
judged from the quiet air which pervaded the family during
the day, that Somerville had thought best to observe a similar
discretion. We silently enjoyed our secret, and only looked
sheathed daggers at each other. It occurred to me that I
had probably gained for myself that exceedingly rare distinc-
tion, so often imagined but so seldom realized, a life-long
390 i! SEACLIFF.

enemy ; but the thought gave me no uneasiness, for youth
does not dread combats, and, to save the Westervelts, I would
have provoked a vigilance committee of enemies. The fear
that he could disgrace that name it was, that chiefly troubled
me, and made me hesitate to serve my proposed ejectment
on him. Such a profligate desperado would not stick at any
libel, however ‘atrocious or self-condemnatory ; and the viler
the slander, the more greedily would it be swallowed by all
the simple and all the scurvy portion of humanity. And
then, what could I say in defence of Mrs. Westervelt’? What
could she say in defence of herself? ,

Her husband came at six of the afternoon. I guessed
that he had delayed his arrival through dread of the coming
crisis, but he said that he had been too late for the previous
train, which was also characteristic, and therefore probable.
He colored when Somerville offered his hand, but he shook
the hand, and stammered, “ Pretty well, I thank you.” Then
the flush fled from his thin cheeks, and he turned deathly
pale, as his wife came forward from her boudoir, and put up
her white lips for his kiss) His children he embraced so
tremulously and passionately, that the daughters stared at
him with a vague, timid questioning in their blue eyes, while
little Willie asked, outright, “Papa, what the matter ?”

“Nothing,—nothing, Willie,—-papa’s business,” he mut-
tered ; and looked the picture of conscious guilt rather than
of injured innocence.

The family meal of that evening was a sorry occasion.
Mr. Westervelt ate nothing, said nothing, and soon left the
table to go and sit in the nursery alone with his little boy.
Mary and Genevieve were silent, observant and evidently
anxious, although as yet they could hardly have been aware
that the hollow which had long muttered under their feet was
yawning into an abyss. Henry Van Leer had gone to New
York, and Robert was at his new boarding-place. Mrs. Van
Leer, entirely ignorant and unsuspicious, talked on in a jest-
ing way, which grated painfully upon the rest of us, who
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 391

were removed as by a great gulf from her frivolous hilarity.
Somerville showed a calmness that was insolent, and a gayety
that, was brutal; absorbing great part of the conversation,
and speaking in his fullest, firmest, most musical tones ; laugh-
ing frequently, and showing the hateful glare of his two long
front teeth through his moustache. He did not address him-
‘self to. Mrs. Westervelt directly, but he seemed bent on quell-
- ing her agitation by the magnetism of his audacious manner,
having informed her, doubtless, of the situation of things,
laid his orders upon her to wear a face of unconcern.
She did her best: she looked no one in the eye; she could
do no more. It is a strange, shocking thing to see the face
of one whom you have esteemed growing whiter and whiter
as you gaze on it, and to believe that it is a vampyre of re-
_ morse at the heart, which is sucking the blood away from the
cheeks.so ravenously.

After tea, Mrs. Westervelt was called into the nursery, and
I did not see her again until next morning. About nine
o’clock, her husband appeared in the hall, pacing it from end
to end, silently, ghost-like, his shoulders bent, his hands
clutched together behind him, and his head bowed in utter
dejection. At the end of what seemed to me an hour, although
Jess than half that probably, he beckoned me to him, and,
without waiting for me or speaking, turned up-stairs, dragging
himself along wearily by the balusters, entering my room,
locked the door behind us, and flung himself on the sofa.
His heart was beating the breath out of him, I know; for,
when he spoke, it was like one who has been running
violently.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh—I wanted to see you—I suppose you
know why,” he began, in short gasps. “There have been
reports—against my wife. They are false—false! I have
just had a long—conversation with her. I assure you—I do
beg you to believe—that they are falsehoods—wicked false-
hoods. She may have been imprudent. No no!—she has
not been even that. They are lies from end to end. She
392 SEACLIFF.

has told me the whole truth, I am convinced. I know her
better than any one. I can—I know that I can—confide in
her.” :

He was obliged to stop for a moment, and draw a long
breath to cool the heated blood that was choking in his lungs.

“T am quite sure,” said I, “ that Mr. Somerville is the
author of these slanders; and I am sure, also, that, he Js
capable of any falsehood.” =

“Yes yes—a great liar,” he answered, eagerly, «“ But
have you thought—has it never occurred to you—that, these
stories might refer to some one else; to—some Rockford
lady—or, perhaps, to Mrs. Van Leer ?”

“T am sorry to say that I fear not. I received a note,
to-day, from your father, stating expressly that the-calumnies
affect Mrs. Westervelt, and that Somerville is the calumniator.
Your father is a very accurate person, I believe.”

“Yes yes,” he moaned. “He told me the same thing.
But, I thought it might. be a are strong expression of
his. If he has written it

“T have another proof as to the personal identities,” i
continued. “ Here is a libel which I got from an old school-
mate of mine, who, I am sorry to say, has to make his living
by picking up items for the New York Tattler. Somerville
dictated it to him, in payment, ostensibly, for favors in the
way of lunches, cigars, &c., but really, perhaps, for some bad
object, which my friend could not guess. I secured it in time
to prevent its publication.” .

I handed him the unfinished bit of defamation which here
follows -—

 

7 Fashionable JImmorality.

“The saints of Gotham will be grieved, and the sinners
wickedly delighted to learn that low life is creeping up-stairs
in our beau monde. Being saintly ourselves, we regret to
hear, on the best authority, that one of our most fascinating

‘gay Lotharios’ and diner’s-out has encountered another
bonne fortune in the aristocratic circles of New York. The
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 893

frail fair one is of a race distinguished for its dollars, and the
name which she now bears is fairly fragrant with bank-notes,
railroad-bonds, and other flowers of fortune. Great is money
in this moral city of ours, but the wealth of the East cannot
buy back lost virtue.

“Lady has an uninteresting husband ; is in the flower of
age, lively and handsome; supports Lothario ; gives him her
watches, rings, and laces to sell; has been seen with him at
Saratoga and Newport ; is now with him at a country-house in
the land of steady habits. Affair commenced in 18—.

(Two squares, at least; usual fat jokes; quotation from
Don Juan.) ,

“ Mr. Fitz Hugh, this is villainous!” exclaimed Mr. Wes-
tervelt, springing up, and pacing the room. “ Villainous!
villainous!” he repeated, unconsciously tearing the paper to
shreds.

“ Villainous indeed!” I answered. “But not necessarily
true, whoever it was meant for. I am confident that Somer-
ville is one of the greatest liars breathing.”

“Why didn’t you show this to me before?” he asked, turn-
ing upon me angrily. “How long have you had it? How
could you keep this from me when it affected me so? I
would have turned him out,—turned him out.”

“ Please observe,” said I, “ that there are no names men-
tioned. There are details which apply to your family, but
which would apply also to other families. Even the Reporter
did not know who the lady was. How could I come to you
with such a vague slander, and say ‘That affects you!’ You
would have asked me for proofs, and I should have had none.
This paper shows nothing certainly but that Somerville is
capable of propagating slanders.”

“Oh! what won’t he say!” he exclaimed, throwing him-
self anew on the sofa, and covering his face with his hands.
When he spoke again, it was to ask what his father ad-

vised.
17*
B94 SEACLIFF.

“To turn him out; of course to turn him out; by force, if
necessary.”

“Well—yes, he shall go. I will exert my authority. I
will. Iwill not have him here. It will seem strange. It
will make a great scandal. But he shan’t stay. I will not
be so tormented and disgraced.”

Silent a while longer, he at last rose to go, saying earnestly
and pleadingly, “I can rely upon you, then? You will sup-
port me? You won't forsake us?” ;

“J will stand by you,” I affirmed, giving him my hand.
He shook it, wrung it, seemed to hang upon it; then took out
his handkerchief and wept while I unlocked the door..

“ Good-night, my good friend,” he sobbed, and walked
away on tiptoe.

I followed him in a few minutes, but he had gone to his
room for the night. Somerville’s mellow tones.and Mrs. Van
Leer’s constant laughter came in through the open windows
from the deepest shadows cast by the garden thickets. The
girls were in the hall, listening to Bob’s second edition of his
voyage to Sandy Hook. This was pretty nearly the condi-
tion of things until within an hour of midnight, when Robert
took himself off, dragging Somerville along with him for
walking company. Mrs. Van Leer joined us, and began to
tease Genevieve to sleep with her, pleading that she couldn’t
sleep alone, wasn’t used to it, didn’t dare to, and shouldn’t
close her eyes without Jenny’s aid and comfort.

“ But if I go with you, then Mary will be lonely,” says
Genevieve, who did not care to leave her sister because, per-
haps, they had confidences to interchange.

“Qh no, she won’t. She isn’t afraid. Besides, she is in
the main body of the house. Now my room is in the wing,
and robbers can get in so easy!”

“ Quite an inducement for me to be there,” was the reply.

“Oh! but two of us, you know ;—that’s so different from
one.: Come, now,--I shan’t sleep a wink unless I have some-
body with me. I just lie and look at the win—dows. Come,
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 895

Jenny, that’s a good girl,—do.stay with me. Now, why won’t
you? You always have when Henry has been away. Now,
(Jenny, do, please )”

So at last Jenny did please, somewhat poutingly, and Cousin
Jule carried her off, as the troublesome fairy in the story-book
carries off the unwilling beauty. Somerville returning soon
-after, the house was closed, and we went our respective ways
to pillows which for that night were stuffed with thorns rather
than poppies. For my part, knowing that I could not sleep,
I merely threw off my coat, seated myself by the window,
.and looked at the Sound, which had swooned away to perfect
rest, and gleamed majestic, ocean-like, shoreless through the
mnisty gauze of moonlight. There is something tranquilliz-
ing to a disturbed spirit in long contemplation of vast and
peaceful expanses of nature. The heavy trials which have
weighed upon us all day, the terrors that seemed to hide the
heavens from us, grow light, grow small, rise from us and
float afar, minute as motes of dust, in that sense of immen-
sity and eternity, which insensibly streams over the mind
from gigantic stretches of sea, and from heavens filled with
shining hosts innumerable. Unquestionably there were others
in that house who needed a mightier consolation, and who
sought it, not indirectly through nature, but directly from the
All-Father. I felt sure that my dear little girl, alone in her
room, was kneeling and praying, with anguished pleading of
spirit, with tears, doubtless, and with her beautiful head
bowed low in trembling fingers. At the thought of that I
also bent my head and whispered, for the idea that she was
praying seemed to me enough to make the universe pray-
erful.

Imperially the moon went down, inspiring the light clouds
along the horizon with a radiance which, for the moment,
rivalled her own, and then leaving them tarnished, blacken-
ing like corpses. The whole night of earth and air, notwith-
standing the multitudinous stars, became at once sombre by
comparison with the vanished splendor. A sympathetic
396 SEACLIFF.

ploom oppressed me, and seemed to bid me prepare for some
approaching peril. I had intended to go to bed when the
moon should be down, but I felt less able to sleep now than
ever, and so remained for an hour longer at the window, gaz-
ing moodily at the Sound, which darkened steadily as long
columns of cloud advanced over the heavens. High in air
there must have been wind to impel that vaporous army, but
on earth not a breeze lifted its wings, and the hush, the stag-
nation, the suspense of nature was like omnipotence.

Suddenly through the holy silence crept a low sound which
made my temples throb as if they echoed to it. A door at
the back end of the upper hall opened so quietly, that, had it
been day instead of night, or had the faintest wind stirred
the garden leafage, I could not have heard it.

It is Somerville, I thought. Can he be going to run
away ?.

I stole across the room, my steps muffled by the thick car-
pet, and knelt at the keyhole. The floor of the hall was
covered with oil-cloth, but so cautious and steady was the
walk of the person outside, that I did not distinguish a single
footfall, and half concluded that he had not left his room.
My pulse had beaten an hour into the space of a minute,
when I heard the latch of the door opposite mine quietly
lifted. Could it be that Miss Westervelt, unable to sleep,
was coming out at that time of night, to join her sister, or to
speak to her father? Or was it possible that Somerville had
the wickedness to dare enter her chamber? If this last sup-
position were true, I could divine without a moment’s reflec-
tion what was the cunning knave’s object ;—that he meant to
be found there, to compromise her, and thus either force her
to marry him, or gain a firmer hold than. ever on the un-
happy family. In another moment I distinguished a faint
metallic sound, like the gliding of a key into a keyhole. I
flung my door wide open and bounded into the hall. There,
under my hand, was Somerville, half dressed, kneeling at the
threshold of my little girl’s room, and trying to pick the lock
with some thievish implement.
TRYING TO BELL THE CAT. 897

He sprang up, but too late to defend himself. I levelled
him with a blow, which to this day it does me good to think
of, and then, throwing myself across him, attempted to hold
him down and throttle him. He writhed from under me,
however, and we both rose together.

“Who's there?” I heard Mary call from within.

* Keep your door locked,” I replied. “ Don’t let any one
in.”

I had scarcely spoken when I caught a heavy blow on my
forehead which staggered me against the wall. I struck
back, blind and blundering as a beetle, but hit him by acci-
dent, and knocked him away from me during the moment
necessary to recover my senses. Had it been daylight, I
might have got soundly beaten, for Somerville was a fair
boxer; but in that darkness, it was not easy to feint and
parry, and weight proved an overmatch for science. In a
moment or two I had Jaid hands on him and stretched him
out on the floor, with a’ knee on each arm, and my fingers
twisted in his neckcloth. He struggled and tried to lift me,
but a little choking brought him to reason.

“ Well, curse you! what do you want?” he gasped.

“Swear that you will go to your room and stay there all
night,” said I.

After some farther writhing and muttering, he obeyed, and
I let him rise. He stood motionless an instant, as if doubting
what to do, but walked away without speaking when I told
him to be off. A gentle tap on Mary’s door and a whisper
of my name through the keyhole adage her to open it suf-
ficiently to speak to me.

“Oh! what does this mean?” she asked, sobbing with
fright.

“T have had an altercation with Mr. Somerville,” I replied,
not choosing to increase her alarm by telling her the cause
of the scufile.

“ With Mr. Somerville? Oh, Louis! has he hurt you ?”

“Not at all, dear. I hurt him. Have you a bolt?”
398 SEACLIFF.

“ Yes.”

“Well, push the bolt and turn the key, and then go to
‘sleep. There is no danger.”

I stood a few minutes in the hall, but heard no noises
about the house, and concluded that the rest of the family
had slept through the disturbance. Returning to my room
I threw myself dressed on my bed, and. perhaps slept, I can
hardly say.
 

 

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE MYSTERY FORCED.

FULLY expected, on coming down next morning,
to find that our Catiline had stolen away. It would

‘ waste two or three pages to attempt to express all the
astonishment and indignation which I felt at seeing him enter
the breakfast room as calm, unembarrassed, elegant, and fluent
as usual. The impudence seems incredible; but he thought
that he had us in his power.

He turned a little pale, indeed, as he took his seat at table
and nodded to one after another; but not so pale by any
means as those whom he thus braved and insulted. Even
Mrs. Van Leer looked shy and frightened now, coloring
scarlet as he came in and then whitening, with a painful con-
sciousness of the rancorous, silent mystery which was taking
shape before her, and perhaps with some pungent apprehen-
sions on her own account. Mrs. Westervelt had up to this
instant seemed utterly sick, broken and faint unto death, in
soul and body; but Somerville’s presence and a few words
from him, though but of ordinary salutation, filled her with an
excitement as of wine, painting a crimson spot in her white
cheek and shaking her with starts, tremors, and unseemly
laughter. The sleepless anguish of the past night had
snapped her nerves and tided her on appreciably toward in-
sanity. One moment her lips twitched and her blood-shot
eyes brimmed with rebellious tears; and the next she burst
400 SEACLIFF.

into a convulsive giggle over some frivolous word: or trifling
accident. We scarcely touched the food, but swallowed our
coffee eagerly, as if hoping some strength from it, and then
pushed away from: the table, following each other, a sullen
chain-gang, into the library. Somerville alone sat out the
usual time and ate with seeming appetite.

Mr. Westervelt took the family Bible in his lap, and said.
in a shaking voice, “ We will have prayers.” This was his
custom, and these were his customary words, but uttered now
as if he spoke them for the first time, and never before knew
what it was to approach the eternal throne in utter feebleness
and humiliation and anguish. I hoped that the human fiend
who had destroyed our peace might feel some contrition, or
at least shame, when he saw the Bible opened and the sor-
rowful, prayerful faces around it, and so would leave us to
ourselves for that solemn moment, or perhaps be impelled to
quit the house instantly and forever. But that was not in his
policy, and he was unflinchingly himself to the end. He
came in presently, and murmuring a word of regret at having
detained us, took place in our circle with an air of genteel
solemnity. Perhaps he did not look upon himself with
horror; perhaps he did not see himself as others saw him;
for sin throws strange enchantments around its votaries; it
plays tricks on them like those of Ariosto’s magicians ; it
makes them see men and things as they are not. It may be
that Somerville thought it a fine jest or a clever feat thus to
brave this wretched family and to profane its moments of most
intimate sanctity; it may be that he hoped to face me down-
and to lie himself clear of the charges which had been brought
against him; it may be that he was driven to this extrem-
ity of insolence by mere wrath and revenge.

Mr. Westervelt read only a few verses, and those in a tone
so full of tremors that the words were hardly distinguishable.
Somerville listened with an amazing command of muscle,
eye and feature, never once changing position, nor lifting his
gaze from the carpet, nor expressing aught in his face but
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 401

attentive seriousness. No stranger, looking in upon us,.
would have dared to say, even in his heart, ‘ One of you is a
devil!’ When we knelt, he also knelt, not ostentatiously, but
quietly, and bending his wicked head like a true penitent.
The prayer was as the prayer of a dying man, so humble
and anxious and troubled was it, so formless‘and chaotic in
expression, yet so passionately strong in emotion, so full of
unuttered longings for pity and of grief that could not be
spoken. When we rose and looked in each other’s faces,
there were tears in all eyes except mine and Somerville’s. I
was full of fury, and he was still a model of graceful com-
posure. No one stirred; there was a moment of suspense,
of expectation ; every one seemed to know instinctively that
now something all important to us was to be said or done;
and Somerville awaited it like the others, watching princi-
pally me, through a self-possession which was like the iron
bars of a visor.

“ That will do, you scoundrel!” I said loudly and hoarsely,,
walking close up to him. “Now, off! Out of the house!”

It was not the best manner of dismissing even a black-
guard; but I used ‘blunt and coarse words because I could
not call up keen ones.

Mrs. Westervelt fell back feebly on a lounge and covered
her face with her hands, while the other ladies all stared at
us, fascinated by that mixture of terror and interest which is
excited in most. women by the spectacle of masculine anger
and conflict. Somerville had physical courage evidently, for
his blood flowed outward instead of inward, flushing his face
crimson. He drew a long strangling breath and turned coolly
to Mr. Westervelt.

“ Sir,” said he, “can’t you protect your family and your
guests from this youngster’s insolence ?”

I was about to lay hands on him, but Mr. Westervelt
checked me with an imploring gesture.

“J—I think, Mr. Somerville,” stammered the frail, timid
man, as white-faced now as any of the women ;—* perhaps.
402 SEACLIFF.

you had better go. I really think you had. Yes, you ought
to go,” he continued, gathering energy as he saw Somerville
glance imperiously at Mrs. Westervelt. “You must go; and
—and you shall go, sir!”.

Meanwhile the desperado glared at his victim as if com-
manding her to speak and reverse this decision. She would
have obeyed him perhaps, but that words were beyond her
power; her lips parted, as in a dream, and closed without
other sound than such a gasp as comes from deathbeds.

“Will you go, sir?” demanded Mr. Westervelt more
firmly. “T say, will you go? You shall not stay in this house
another hour. I will not have it. I will not bear it any
longer. I say, will you go?” he repeated, his voice rising
until it was almost a scream. “ You—you are a liar; you
are a villain, sir! Be off!”

Somerville’s calmness gave way all at once, and he burst
into a paroxysm of fury, his form seeming to dilate like that
of an enraged adder, and his two long teeth showing as if
they were fangs filled with poison. A laugh came from him
which sounded to me like that of a hyena exulting over a
grave.

“T will not go,” he thundered. “TI will stay here as long
as I choose ; and what is more, I will make you glad to keep
me. I hold you in my hand. I can destroy the honor of
your family. Aha?”

“Do you mean to say anything against my daughters?”
asked Mr. Westervelt, choking and shaking his feeble fist.

“ Better than that!” retorted Somerville, his tusks visible
all the while now, although he was not laughing. “You
know very well what I mean. There is my victim.”

He turned and pointed at Mrs. Westervelt, who gave a
faint shriek and hid her head in the sofa cushions.

“Touch me, or drive me out of here, and I will gibbet
your wife’s reputation,” he continued. “I have letters of
‘hers that will damn her. Ask her if it is not so. Ask her!
I will step out and leave you at liberty. If she does not tell
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 403

the truth, and nothing but the truth, I will show you her let-
ters. So be frank, Madam,” said he, facing her. “ Aha! this
troubles you, does it? ‘You should have prevented it. I told
you how. You should have prevented it.”

Glaring around on us all, he bowed, stepped lightly into
the hall, seized his hat and was gone, before we could open
our lips to plead with him or curse him. In the veranda the
Van Leer brothers passed him as they entered.

“What's the row, Somerville? What the devil’s to pay?”
they exclaimed, and, getting no answer, pushed on eagerly
into the library.

‘Thad started to follow the hyena, but Mr. Westervelt had
called to me, “ Don’t strike him! don’t provoke him! Con-
sider us, Mr. Fitz Hugh.”

Accordingly I halted on the steps only shaking my fist and
growling a menace.

“You are onthe safe side, my lad,” he replied with his
hideous laugh. “I can’t fight four men and four women. I
shall not try to force your castle. But hearken to this. Be-
fore the day is out you will be writing me to come back,—
bribing me to come back. I shall be at Rockford; you can
direct to me there.”

He walked on‘to the garden gate, opened it, looked back
at me and added, “ By the way, Fitz Hugh, I am out of
money. When you come over for me, you had better bring a
hundred dollars. That is all I shall want at present.”

I presume that Somerville had intended to conduct this
whole scene with better taste as well as better success, but his
self-command had given way more easily and more completely
than he expected, and the result was a ruffianism of manner
and language, which, I dare say, the dandified brute afterward
thought of with bland regret and vexation. To ordinary
mortals, sober-minded and respectable people, such conduct
as his seems like lunacy. So does murder, when you fully
realize it, seem thus; and yet men have learned to take life
almost without excitement. Somerville had perfectly babitu-
404 SEACLIFF.

ated himself to his chosen path of wickedness, and he walked
in it as a matter of course, only vaguely conscious that it was
unnatural and infamous. There are few such creatures as he
in the reputable’ classes of American society, but there are
many in the disreputable. The New York police, at least,
will understand me, when I say that he was simply a “fancy
man,” who had been tempted and enabled by circumstances
to carry his robberies and brutalities into an unaccustomed
circle. Doubtless it was to his gambling habits that he owed
much of his wicked coolness, for no other human experience,
not even battle, ices a man like the vicissitudes of the gam-
ing-table. :

Without answering his last bravado, I returned to the li-
-brary, where all now was running and confusion, Mrs.
’Westervelt and Mrs. Van Leer having both fainted. As
soon as the latter came fairly to her senses, she began to
sob and whimper unappeasably, clinging close to her be-
wildered husband, after her usual fashion when in trouble.
“Qh, that hateful, lying Somerville!” she gasped. “Oh,
what a liar he is! Don’t you believe a word he says,
Henry. Don’t let him say anything against me. He'll
come and lie about me now. Don’t listen to him, Henry.”

“He sha’nt say a word against you. What can he say,
though ?” demanded the puzzled and excited man. “ What
is all this about? What the devil does it mean, Jule?”

“Oh, Henry! you scare me. Oh! you shan’t speak to
me so. Let’s go away from here; come, let’s go back to
New York,” she whined. “I’m afraid of that hateful Som-
erville. Oh! I’m afraid to stay here.”

“Come, come, don’t tremble so, Jule; keep a stiff upper
lip,: Jule,” he replied soothingly. “But what is it all?
What is the meaning of this infernal row?”

“Mr. Somerville has been slandering Mrs. Westervelt,”
I whispered, seeing that there was no way of quieting him
except by an explanation. “ He has slandered her and in-
sulted the whole family.”
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 405

Both Henry and Robert leaned eagerly toward me, their
broad faces reddening as the sense of insult crept through
their heavy intellects ; and had Somerville been there then,
it-is likely that he would not have escaped without mal-
treatment that would have been next to murder. They
-had ‘no time to speak, however, and scarcely time to com-
prehend what I said, before their wretched cousin opened
her languid, anxious eyes upon us.

_ “Do you feel better, Ellen ?” asked her husband tenderly,
lifting her. head and putting ees to her lips, “ Don’t be
frightened. That rascal is gone.” 1

“Oh! is he?” she moaned fepdieaty, “Oh, but he'll
come back. again. I know him. He'll be sure to come
back. He'll tell you everything—worse than it is. I would
rather tell it all myself.”

“What! there is something then?” he exclaimed. “Oh!
nothing wrong, Ellen? Oh, Ellen! you swore to me last
night that there was nothing wrong.”

“ We had better step out,” said I to the Van Leers, at the
same time retreating toward the door. _

_ With a-decision which was so extraordinary in him, so out
of character, that it seemed like a start of insanity, Mr. Wes-
tervelt immediately closed and locked the door. “ No, no!”
said he. “Stay here, all of you. I wish you to hear every-
thing,—everything! This mystery is worse than the truth
can possibly be.” 3

Staring at the pale miserable woman on the sofa, we stood
there, a silent, embarrassed group, only less disquieted and
distressed than she.. i

“Oh! wait a minute” she said, crying. “Give me time
to think. Oh! where shall I begin? I don’t know what
I’m about.”

“ What did you write to.him in those letters?” asked her
husband.

“Oh, yes—that was the beginning of it, I remember now.
That was the way he first got me in. his power,—by my let-
406° SEACLIFF.

ters,” she replied, talking straight on through her sobs and
tears. “TI really don’t know why I ever came to write to

him; I can’t imagine how I could have been so imprudent ;,

it has all been like a wild infatuation. But, stop; I do.know
very well what first made. me write; it is strange that I
should forget it.) He was my lawyer, you know; and so we
had to correspond. They were all business letters for a long
time ; but. at last. I wrote something, I hardly know what,
which he said placed me in his power; and. since then I
never have been able to get free from him. Oh!- don’t

leave me; don’t turn away from me; you will kill me if.

you do. It is not what you think ; no, not so bad as that;
oh! do try to believe me. I have never, never, never for-
gotten that I loved. my husband better than any one else in

the world. You believe that, don’t you, my dear?” And.

she clasped at his nerveless hands with a humble, piteous

eagerness, and kissed them. “Do. believe it, I beg of you,

if you don’t wish to kill me outright. Do. you think that, I

could ever forget, you, or our little boy? Oh, never, never!
But I have been so very wretched; oh! so very helpless and.

frightened almost all the while for the last four or five years.
This man has persecuted me continually, and followed me

everywhere, threatening and tormenting me so that,I have..
wished a great many times that I could die. Iam sure that_

he ought to be punished, either. in this world or some other,
for hunting down the very life of a poor weak woman, never

giving her an hour of peace, always threatening and abusing |

her, although she never did him any harm. And it was all
to extort money from me. Oh! I hate him, I loathe him,
and I have hated him for years, although he made me treat
him so politely, and made me-invite him here as if he was
one of my best friends. I cannot be happy as long as I think
that I shall ever see his face again. Oh! I can never be
happy any more.”

She pressed her hands against her eyes, and laid her head
back against the wall, sobbing as if her bosom would burst
with its heavings.
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 407

“Js that the way your watches and laces and money -
went, Ellen?" Did Somerville take them?” asked Henry
Van Leer.

“Yes, he took them. He took my laces in New York.
Then he took my watch and more laces about the time Mr.
Fitz Hugh came here. After that he took the emerald
which I gave to Genevieve, but lost it, and Johnny Treat
found it. My miniature,—he stole that, and sold the setting.
He has taken a great many other things, before and since ;
and I never dared resist him, but only to beg for some of
them. I have had to give him money too,—a great deal of
it. He would have it, and made me sell my trinkets and
clothes and sometimes bank-stocks to get it for him.”

How could we believe all this, and yet not believe that she
was terribly culpable? How could an innocent wife, such
as she asserted herself to be, come so completely under the
power of a man who was not her relative, whose mere society
was danger and whose intimacy was pollution? Judging her
by her own story, it seemed certain that she must have fallen
from the heaven of woman’s purity. This woful conclusion.
was present, I believe, to all of us, and sunk deeper mo-
mently into our minds, in spite of sorrow and sympathy and
love for this unfortunate one, in spite of pity for ourselves.
It did not, however, nerve any person to speak an angry or
accusing word, except Henry Van Leer. To: his narrow,
fleshly, matter-of-fact nature the hard inference was a hard
truth, undisguised, unrelieved by any of that delicate drapery
of doubt and pity, which a more tender, imaginative mind
would have thrown around it. He was the near blood-
relative of Mrs. Westervelt, also; and thus naturally felt
her guilt as an insult to himself. Advancing close to his
miserable cousin, he laid one of his heavy hands on her
and pushed her head back, so as to look in her face, saying
hoarsely, “ Tell us the whole truth, Ellen. You have done
something. What is‘it? Don’t go on lying to us. By
Heavens ! you shall let us know the whole truth.”
408 SEACLIFF.

“Oh, Henry !—Henry! have pity on me,” she gasped,
shrinking away from his stern face. “Oh! I can’t,—I can’t
tell you.”

“You shall! you shall!” he shouted. “Do you think we
have no right to know? We have aright, I tell you; and
you shall confess the whole, by Heavens! No more lies,
Ellen! You have lied to us enough about the laces and
jewels and those things.”

Mr. Westervelt tried to speak, in defence of his wife, I
believe ; but the words died on his white lips, and he turned’
away, groaning.

“Henry, have mercy on me!” she sobbed again. “I
cannot speak it—not before you all—but I will tell you—
I will tell it in writing—only give me time to think.”

“ Time to think a lie!” responded Van Leer furiously.

“ No, no,” she said. “TI will let you know the whole truth.
I promise—I promise before God, that you shall know every-
thing—only give me an hour to try and remember.”

“That is enough, Ellen,” said Mr. Westervelt, putting out
one trembling hand as if to protect her. “You shall have
till to-morrow to think it all over. Be quiet, Mr. Van Leer.
This affair concerns me more nearly than any one else.”

He stepped to the door, unlocked it and walked unsteadily
into the garden. We followed him as far as the hall and
then separated, each one taking a different way, as if we felt
it impossible to exchange a word or even to endure each
other’s presence. Henry Van Leer halted to mutter some-
thing in the ear of Mrs. Wesiervelt. I could not hear it,
but it must have been cruel, for she turned upon him like a
creature driven to desperation, and made this bitter retort,
“You had better look after your own wife; I am not the
only woman who has been intimate with Mr. Somer-
ville.” .

“Liar! what do you mean?” he exclaimed, quite beside
himself with fury; but she rushed off without answering,
took refuge in her room and locked herself in.
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 409

“ Fllen! Ellen!” he shouted, following her close and
beating violently on the door.

No answer, except a silence which streamed into his pres-
ent mood like a breath of poison; and after raving under it
a minute, he went out to pace the veranda with slow step
and scowling brow. I presume that he had never before
coupled the two facts, first that Somerville was a dissolute
man, and second that he had been much with Mrs. Van
Leer ; ‘but now they presented themselves in cruel brother-
hood, inextricable to his mind, armed with sharp suspicions
which severed rapidly all the tendrils of faith which had
hitherto bound him to his wife. If one of these women has
fallen, he doubtless said to himself, how can I be sure of the
other? I believe that dull-minded, coarse-natured people
are rarely convinced by halves, or take up a new emotion
cautiously. Run your eye through the life of the less intel-
ligent classes, and you will be struck by the superior energy
of their prejudices, the extravagance of their likes and dis-
likes, the lack of self-command in their expression of feeling.
Van Leer was a gentleman in position and dress, but a clod--
hopper in mental and moral culture. When, five minutes
after Mrs. Westervelt had quitted him, he walked into the
parlor and stood face to face with me, he was savagely jealous
of that wife whom hitherto he had adored and trusted so un-
reservedly.

“Fitz Hugh,” said he, “what do you know about my wife
and Somerville ? ”

“Your wife and Somerville!” I returned, affecting to mis-
understand ;—“ you mean your cousin and Somerville.”

“T mean my wife,” he repeated loudly. “ Have you seen
her flirting with that scoundrel? Tell me that. Tell
me, for God’s sake, Fitz Hugh, and put me out of my misery.”

“ You are crazy, my dear friend,” I replied, with that charity
which any man’s heart would have dictated. “What could
Isee? I have seen nothing but what has passed under your

own eyes and in presence of the family.”
18

 
410 SEACLIFF.

At that moment the ‘butterfly came fluttering around the
flame that was ready’ to scorch her. Mrs. Van Leer ap-
peared in the doorway, glanced suspiciously at me, half
turned away, stole a side look at her husband, and finally
walked up to him with a forced smile which was truly
piteous. As he watched her tithorous movements, his large,
brown eyes dilated, and he seemed to kindle within to a mass
of throbbing passion. :

“Look here!” said he. “I have heard, about your tri-
fling with that blackguard. What does it mean ? What
have you been doing? Ha?”

She flinched before him, as well she might, and really
looked like a most guilty creature. He extended his solid
right hand and laid it on her yielding shoulder, crushing
his fingers deep into the gauzy boddice, while he never re-
moved his eyes from hers. She trembled from head to foot,
and seemed to be upheld only by his grasp.

“Oh Henry! don’t believe it,” she begged, when he shook
her to make her speak. “I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do wrong.
Oh! believe me. Don’t believe him.”

“Him? Fitz Hugh hasn’t said anything against you.
‘What have you got to say for yourself? Come along.”

Seizing her by the arm, he dragged her off as if she had
been a child.

“Qh! don’t, Henry. I didn’t do anything. I wish I
never had seen Mr. Somerville. I wish I never had got
married. Oh! I wish I was dead,” were the last whimpers

_that I heard as he hurried her away.

How ill the poor frivolous flirt bore the natural results of
her coquetry! It was laughable, although I did not laugh,
to compare her pitiable fright with the gay boasts which she
had often made, as to how she would put her husband down
if he should ever dare to be jealous. For every flirtation
that he charged her with, she would acknowledge two, she
said, and thus make herself out so horribly guilty, that, for
the sake of his own peace of mind, he would drop the subject
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 411

like a hornet’s nest. Well, at last the hour of trial had
come; and she would have given her entire wardrobe to
have it over.

Not knowing precisely how far Van Leer’s blind jealousy
might carry him, I should have been anxious about the silly
woman, had I not soon heard her open her door and call, in
a voice of weeping desperation, to Mary Westervelt. My
little girl’s dress rustled hastily along the hall; and I whis-
pered to myself, “ Blessed are the peacemakers !.”

When Mrs. Van Leer came down stairs again, she had
been forgiven, although she was still a wonderfully anxious,
meek, and shamefaced creature. How had pertness de-
parted from her lips, and coquetry from her eyes, and brass
from her forehead! She was no rarity; we meet just such
people everywhere ; heroic as Don Quixote, in galloping into
difficulties ; unwarlike and helpless as Sancho Panza, when
the shock comes; perfect ideals in their own conceit of tact,
readiness, and administrative talent; but blown away like
foam by the passion-breath of a truly strong nature, whether
physical or moral. I do not suppose that they are downright
liars, when they boast of what they will and can do, but
rather that they are deceived by the vivacity of their animal
spirits or the warmth of their imaginations. Vanity, too, is
an incessant cajoler, who can make the deafest hear, and the
most skeptical believe. How often have the cleverest of us
been persuaded by her that we had really beaten our plough-
shares into swords, and our pruning-hooks into spears, only to
find, when the battle commenced, that they were still but
ploughshares and pruning-hooks, and that there was nothing
for us to do but to run for it!

Weeks after this unhappy day I discovered that Mrs. Van
Leer, with the usual meanness of a moral coward, had en-
deavored to drag in the name of Mrs. Westervelt between
herself and her husband’s anger. Necessarily our own pec-
cadilloes look like molehills when we can exaggerate the sins
of our neighbors to mountains. Mrs. Westervelt and Mr.
412 SEACLIFF.

Somerville ought to be ashamed of themselves, she said.
Oh! it was a dreadful, dreadful affair to be sure, and they
both ought to be punished most severely ; and the worst of
all was, how innocent they had seemed all the while, so as to
deceive the very elect of virtue. How could his poor little
wife know that Somerville. was a bad man, when that woman
there, who pretended to be so knowing, and so good too, was
intimate with him? Oh! they. had both been too deep for
everybody ; and she, his unhappy Jule, had been taken in
like all the rest; and now her husband was angry with her
because she was not cleverer than he was. He had better
settle with the guilty ones first, before he turned upon her,
who was just as much astonished and horror-struck by the
exposure as anybody. She wished he had never . brought
her to Seacliff to stay with his relatives. She wished he had
never introduced that hateful Somerville to her. She wished
she was dead and safe in her grave. /

An hour or two of this whining and coaxing brought Van
Leer around so completely that he came out of the room
furious at his cousin for maligning his wife, as well as for
her other supposed iniquities. He laid wait for the unhappy
woman, and discovered her stealing into the library in search
of writing materials.

“Ellen!” he called in a brutal tone, “I've just one piece
of advice to give you. Make away with yourself and done
with it.”

The savage remark may have struck, not only on the woe
in her heart, but on some terrible purpose that was blindly
forming there, for she turned from him with a shriek and
rushed back to her room.

Who can tell of the agony that was enacted in that cham-
ber? What bloody sweat came from that poor soul in her
hopeless Gethsemane, suffering selfishly, thanklessly, for her
own sins, and not generously, supportably, for the sins of
others! Two or three times she called Willie in there and
held him in her lap, crying; but the child soon begged his
THE MYSTERY FORCED. 413

way out, dismayed by a grief so violent. On the rest of us
she kept the door locked all that day and the night following.
Whoever spoke to her, she would make no reply, except to
beg in a low voice, which sounded strangely unearthly
through the pannels, that she might be left alone a little
longer. All this time, of course, I did not once see her;
but I continually imagined her sitting at her table and bend-
ing over her dreary task of confession; now covering her
face and trying to strangle her sobs with her trembling
hands; then again dipping the cruel pen into her heart and
writing on. Hours when all was innocence and happiness ;
hours when temptation had come, but resistance was still
possible ; one fatal hour in which the sin was stricken deep
into her soul like a barbed arrow; then amazement, shame,
terror, remorse, and all the first convulsive agony of crime ;
then a weary wandering from. sorrow to sorrow, driven on by
a demon in human form; all must be called up, must be
endured anew, must be told, if that were possible. Do you
remember the gloom and dismay which you felt the first time
it happened to you, then a little child, perhaps, to pass a day
in a house where laid the corpse of some one whom you well
knew? It was with nearly the same feeling that I thought
of that room and of the living death which was within it.

What a sullen and cheerless night it seemed to us, not-
withstanding the gay chirp of the crickets, the tender whis-
per of the south wind, the great shimmer of the Sound, and
the lofty resurrection of the host of Heaven! Yet I be-
lieve that all of us slept somewhat, for we were quite worn
out by twenty-four hours of fearful excitement ; and slumber
will come to utter weariness, even though pain watches with
it and death stands knocking at the door.
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXX.

CONFESSION.

LEEP came to me so late that, as a consequence, it
Gg: left me late, or at least later than I expected. It
= was nearly seven o'clock, when, going down stairs,
I found Mr. and Mrs. Van Leer, Mary, and Genevieve in
the parlor, all silent, and gazing abstractedly out of different
windows, as I have seen crazy people’ in lunatie asylums.
I had just inquired for Mr. Westervelt, and learned that he
had not yet been seen, when he walked slowly into the room,
unaware of us, his head bent, his hands unconsciously crump-
ling a manuscript. When I spoke to him he looked up with
a start, and mumbled something which was doubtless meant
for Good-morning. Presently he drew the roll of paper
from behind him, shook his head sadly, sank into a chair, put
on his spectacles, and began to peruse the scrawled, blotted
pages with a sickening look of trouble.

“Tt is very bad,” he said at last, shaking his head again ;
“very bad indeed; but not so bad as it might have been
not so bad as some of us thought. Mary, has any one seen
Mrs. Westervelt ? ”

“T believe not, papa,” she replied ; and all of us repeated
“No,” im succession.

“T have knocked at her door, but she did not answer,”
said he. “I suppose she is asleep,—worn out,—poor
child!”
CONFESSION. 415

It was touching to hear the tone of kindness, unaffected,
and, as it were, unconscious, with which he spoke of her.

“ Well,” he resumed, after another glance at the manu-
script, “here is the whole story. It is a very bad one, but
not the worst,—thank Heaven, not the worst! I will read it
to you. You must all hear it.”

Mary quietly locked the doors, and we sat down around
him.

“My dear husband,” he began, but his voice faltered
weakly among the words, and sank helpless, soundless over
the last, the tenderest. He sought to recall his manhood ;
he made an unavailing struggle with. his heart, that was pain-
ful to behold; and then, with a look at us which said, You
see that I cannot do it, he mutely handed me the paper. I.
took the tear-stained, iineen almost illegible pages, and read
aloud this sorrowful tale of weakness, crime, and retribution.

“My pear HusBanp :—

“T wish you in the first place to believe that I love you
from the bottom of my heart, and that never, never since our
marriage have I been unfaithful to you in deed or thought.
I declare this to you most solemnly, as if with my dying
breath; and I will repeat it to you at the last great day; and
God knows that it is the truth. Do not, I beg of you, believe
one word that Mr. Somerville may say against my honor as
a wife. I have sins enough to answer for, but not that one.

“To make you forgive me, or at least pity me a little, I
will tell you how I came under this wicked man’s influence.
I committed a great crime, indeed, but not such a crime as
you suspect. You remember that my old uncle, Jacob C.
Van Leer, supported me from the time my parents died, in-
troduced me into society, dressed me handsomely, gave par-
ties for me, and took me to all the watering-places. While
he lived, I was quite a belle, very gay and very fashionable.
Alas! it was this which ruined me. If I had not loved dress
so, if I had not been so ambitious to move in the first society,
*

416 SEACLIFF.

I might have been a happy woman now, instead of a most

‘wretched one.

“ Everybody said, and I always supposed, that, as my
uncle had no children, and I had no parents, he would leave
all his money to me, who. had lived with him so long, and
been, as it were, his daughter. He had no other natural
heir, except my cousins, Henry and Robert, and he knew
that they were very rich already. But at last I learned that
he was anxious to keep his property in the name, and meant
to give it all to my cousins, only leaving me the interest of
ten thousand dollars until I should get married. It was Mr.
Somerville himself who told me that such a will had been
made. Mr. Somerville came to know about it, because he
was the junior partner of Mr. Longbill, my uncle’s lawyer,
and helped to draught the papérs. He was a very fashion-
able, showy man then, as he is now, and pretended to be a
great friend of mine. His friendship began during my first
season at Saratoga, when he was excessively struck by my
waltzing. You remember, my dear husband, how fond I was
of waltzing when you first knew me. Oh, me! I shall never
waltz any more. But I was speaking of Mr. Somerville, and
of what he told me about the will. It made me very melan-
choly and perhaps angry. I knew that I could not move
suitably in society on six or seven hundred a year. It
seemed very cruel of my uncle thus to blight my prospects,
especially after he had led me to entertain such expectations.
If my cousins had needed it, I would not have cared so much
about it; but it was too bad to cut’me off so, merely to keep
the money in the name of Van Leer.”

“Why, she’s crazy,” broke in Henry. “She wasn’t cut
off; nothing of the sort. What in Heaven’s name does she
mean ?”

Mr. Westervelt turned a vacant eye on him and then
pointed to me. I continued from the manuscript.

“Mr. Somerville often told me so, in a manner that seemed
very friendly then, although I am sure now that it-was for’
CONFESSION. 417

no good. Oh! he has always been too deep for me, and too
wicked. He was quite frequent in his calls about this time,
and repeatedly made me presents of bouquets, and I occa-
sionally wondered if he had any serious intentions. But he
said nothing very remarkable until a little while after Mr.
Longbill died. Then he told me that now he was the man-
ager of my uncle’s estate, and that there was nothing in the
world to prevent me from having the will altered. I told
him that I was ashamed to speak to my uncle about it. He
laughed at me, said that I was very innocent, and talked a
long time in a strange, joking way before I could understand
him. At last I saw that what he meant was to have a will
forged which should give me all the property. Oh, my dear
husband, I want that you should do me justice, and believe
that at first I was horror-struck at this dishonest and wicked
proposition. I told Mr. Somerville that I would not think
of it fora minute. But, oh! I did think of it night and day;
so troubled by it, that sometimes I could hardly eat or sleep ;
so tempted that I could not get rid of the idea even in my
pleasantest parties. At last, when Mr. Somerville urged the
plan for perhaps the twentieth time, I half consented.”

“Qh, the devil!” exclaimed Henry Van Leer. “I begin
to understand. The will was a false one, eh? I say, Robert,
—well, never, mind ;—I'll tell you another time. Go on,
Mr. Fitz Hnghe

“Yes, go on,” said Robert, excitedly. “You dry up,
Henry. What’s the use interrupting so! ”

“Oh, my husband!” the manuscript continued, “do not,
I beg of you, tell my cousins how much I have wronged
them, unless you must. I am obliged to tell you, but they
need never hear of it, surely ; and then, you know, they do
not want the money. It was wrong to cheat them out of it,
but they did not feel the loss of it.”

“It must all go back,” spoke out Mary, in such a firm,
@ imperative voice as I had never before heard from her.

“ Indeed, we cannot keep it.”
18 *
418 SEACLIFF.

“Not a bit of it!” eried Robert, furiously. “I won't
touch the first red.”

“Please. go on,” said Mr. Westervelt, languidly, and I
continued.

“ Well, when I had consented, Mr. Somerville brought me
a false will, all complete, with a signature like my uncle’s
and several others of witnesses. Nothing was left out but
the date, which he said must not be added till my uncle died.
Whether he wrote the paper himself or hired some other
person to do it, I do not know, for he never told me, and he
could imitate every sort of handwriting. The will gave me
all my uncle’s property, except a thousand dollars a-piece to
my cousins.” (“That’s so,” muttered Henry.) “Mr. Sotner-
-ville showed it to me once, and then I did not see it again for
more than a year; that is, not till my uncle was dying. Then
he brought me the real will (though I don’t know how he got
hold of it) and the false one with it, and made me read them
over. I pretended to do. it, but I hardly saw one word that
cwas in them, I was crying so at the thought of my poor old
uncle and of my own wickedness.

“¢ Now,’ said he, when I handed them back to him, ‘ burn
the one that you dislike.’

““¢ Give me the false one, then,’ said I. ‘I can’t burn the
other. I won’t do it. It is too wicked,’

“ He tossed me one of them, and I threw it into the grate
without looking at it. :

“There, said he; ‘there goes the true will; it was the
true will I gave you.’ .

“T jumped to save it, but it was already half burned.
Then I threatened to run up stairs and confess the whole to
my uncle » but it seemed too late, he was so near death; and,
finally, I dared not do it. While I was still wringing my
hands and walking about the room in a fright, Mr. Somer-
ville demanded my signature to a paper promising to pay
him ten thousand dollars when I came into possession of my
uncle’s property. I signed it, because he threatened to ex-
CONFESSION. 419

pose me if I did not, and because I was in such a perplexity
that I did not know what to do. The moment he had my
name, he took both the papers and hurried off. I suppose
that he went to put the false will in place of. the old one be-
fore any one should discover its absence; but I do not know,
for he never told me anything about it, and I cannot even
guess how he got at my uncle’s private papers. Perhaps it
was half-an hour afterward, though it seemed a whole day,
that a servant came to tell me that uncle was suddenly
worse, and would only live a few minutes. I ran up to the
room crying, and fainted away by the bedside. Oh, my hus-
band! I was really very much to be pitied, notwithstanding
that I was such a guilty tool of a wicked man.”

“Poor Nelly!” Henry Van Leer muttered, perhaps un-
awares to himself.

“Why, good Lord! we would have given her the
money,” exclaimed Robert. “ Good Lord! we wouldn’t
have taken the first dollar from her.”

“ Please to continue,” said Mr. Westervelt, again, without
seeming to notice the Van Leers.

« And now, my dear husband,” I read on, “ you understand
the whole. Now you can see how I came under the influ-
ence of Mr. Somerville, and never could break away from
him, no, not even when you commanded me to do so. Much
as I have loved you,—and I have loved you dearly,—I dared
quarrel with you sooner than with him. Oh! that man has
been the terror and anguish of my life. I have feared him
day and night, present and absent. I have hated him, too,
as I never thought I could hate any of my fellow-creatures.
He made me wicked, and he has kept me wicked. How often,
when I was the belle of the evening, when I was laughing
and dancing as though I was too gay to think, have I envied
the homeliest and most unnoticed woman present, if I saw a
look of pure, sinless happiness in her face! How willingly
and joyfully would I have given up my ill-gotten wealth, if I
could have regained my old innocence! But, you see, it
420 SEACLIFF.

could not be. If I resigned it to my cousins, I must tell how
I came by it. So I had to keep my money, and it was. a
perpetual torment.

“TI paid Mr. Somerville his ten thousand dollars. What
he did was worth that, if I had really cared to have him do
it. But that was only the beginning of his extortions. He
spent his money on bad women, or gambled it away, in a few
months, and then he demanded more, threatening to’ show me
up if I refused. I thought that he was as guilty as I, but I
knew that he was far more reckless, and I did not dare to
make him desperate. Although I was worth fifty thousand
dollars, I had to economize closely, in order to.meet the checks
he drew on me. He spent nearly all my income one year,
and made me use part of my capital for my own support. At
last, my dear husband, you addressed me, and I accepted
you. J hoped that your position and character would be a
defence to me, and keep off this villain, who so tortured and
robbed me. But he was too cunning and too desperate to be
beaten. During all our engagement, yes, and during all our

‘married life, in America and in Europe, he has haunted,
plagued, terrified, and plundered me. I have wondered a
thousand times that you never saw into our miserable secret.
How could you help seeing that I hated this man, and yet
dreaded him so that I did not dare to say that I hated him }”

Mr. Westervelt interrupted the reading with a groan, but
made no remark. The Van Leers muttered half audible
maledictions. -

“ Let me tell you some particular things that he has done,”
the narrative went on. “ You will hardly believe that a man,
who is so polite and graceful as he is in society, can be guilty
of such ungentlemanliness and cruelty to a woman; but, so
sure as I live, and God lives, all that I am going to tell you
is the sacredest truth. He has often pretended to be in love
with me, and has made me such proposals that I am ashamed
to tell them, and would only stop urging the subject when I
would give him money. Then, if I had nothing for him, he
CONFESSION. 421

would rob me to my face. Once he took my watch, although
I begged and cried to have him spare it, because it was left
me by my mother when I was a little girl. After that he
often carried off my jewelry and laces, sometimes before my
eyes and sometimes secretly. He frequently threatened to
be the death of me, swore at me, and called me the vilest
names, all to make me furnish him money.”

Mr. Westervelt groaned again. here, while the Van Leers
cursed loudly and furiously.

“ At last, he began to strike me; yes, as true as God lives,
to strike me.”

“Ts the man a beast?” roared Henry Van Leer. “TI
swear, I'll kill him. But, go on. Let’s hear. Let’s hear
the whole of it. Vl finish him ;—Il. 2

“Tt was just before we went to Europe, that he first struck
me,” I read. “I had not seen him for a long while, except
by accident at a party, and then only to say Good-evening.
Sometimes he would leave me alone in this way, when he got
plenty of money from other sources; and then I would get
heart again, go into society, and try to be happy, as I was
before.. You must.remember, my dear husband, how I used
to differ in this respect at different times. You must remem-
ber how cheerful and sociable I became during that whole
year when he was absent in Europe, just before our own
tour. Did you ever see me lively and happy when he was
about? Now you know the reason.

“ Well, when he returned, I was anxious to be away, and
teased you into going abroad. I tried to keep the affair a
secret, but he Heard of it. While we were staying at the
Millionaire Hotel, in New York, he saw me in the passage,
followed me:into my room, told me to hush my noise when I
offered to call the servants, and demanded money. As I said
that I had none, he put his hand in my dress pocket, and then
rummaged my drawers until he found my porte-monnaie and
three bracelets. The bracelets were valuable,—one a dia-
mond,—and the porte-monnaie contained about fifty dollars.

 
422 SEACLIFF.

Then he presented a draft for five hundred dollars, and told
me to sign it. I refused. He locked the door, and began to
curse me. I still refused, and tried to get at the bell. He
struck my hands three or four times, and finally struck me in
the face. I screamed, but no one heard me, and he struck
me again, and pulled my hair, until I promised to be still.
At last he said he would go away if I would sign a draft for
two hundred and fifty dollars. You will not wonder that I
did so.” J

I need not repeat the running comments of the Van Leers ;
they were frequent and profane at this stage of the story.

“Father, ought we to hear all this?” asked Mary. :

“Stay,” said he.. “You must hear it all. It will be a
lesson to you. Oh, what a lesson!”

“You know how soon he followed us to Europe,” the con-
fession went on. “ You know how he stuck by us at Paris,
and again at Florence, until I persuaded you away from both
those beautiful places before we had half seen them. “You
could not imagine then why I was so unreasonable and obstinate.
In Europe, he repeatedly robbed me; repeatedly threatened
and cursed and struck me. I used to make the girls wear
my best laces, and keep my jewelry in their trunks, so that
he could not possibly get at them. Finally, he threatened
so violently that he would ruin me, and send me to Sing
Sing, that I sold nearly half my ornaments, and gave him the
money, which was about fifteen hundred francs. At Florence,
when I met him.at the Grand Ducal ball, he tried to make
me give him a draft on my bankers, at home,.for two thou-
sand dollars, promising to let me entirely alone in future, if I
would do so. When I refused, he said that I should learn
his vengeance as soon as I got to America. That was the
last time I saw him in Europe.

“Tn a fortnight after we reached home he reappeared, and
robbed me of my Neapolitan corals. They were not marked;
—TI never had my name on things now ;—I was afraid he
would pledge them, and then a name would have discov-
CONFESSION. 428

ered all. It was a constant wonder to me that you never
found out how my valuables disappeared, and why I wore so
little lace and jewelry, when before I wore such a quantity.
Oh, I have had to tell you so many falsehoods! I do most
humbly and earnestly ask your pardon for them. ‘You see
how wretchedly I was forced to lie.

“Jt was after we returned from Europe that Mr. Somer-
ville began to put advertisements in the secret column of the
New York Tattler. He addressed me by the name of Jose-
phine,.and signed himself Rudolph. Sometimes he demanded
money in this way, sometimes threatened me with exposure,
and sometimes ordered me to meet him in this or that part
of the city, which was often a very low quarter. Perhaps
these advertisements were the revenge that he spoke of in
Florence. At all events, they used to frighten me dreadfully,
they seemed so public, and so easily understood. Yet I sub-
scribed for the Tattler, and always felt wretchedly when it
failed, for fear that I should miss seeing his advertisements,
and so he would get furious, and expose me.

“T soon found that I could not enjoy myself in New York
society, because he was always there, and always ready to
torment me. That was the reason that I bought this Seacliff
house, and chose to live in the country, when, as you know,
I hate country life. But he followed us up here as soon as
summer came, and recommenced his old persecutions, becom-
ing more and more violent as I grew poorer and less able to
satisfy him. I think that he has robbed me, all together, of
about ten thousand dollars, besides the first sum that I gave
him. All this I had to conceal, as well as I could, by silence
and lying. Then no sooner had I covered up one loss in a
manner, than he would come for more money, and I would
have to find it or endure everything.

“There is one thing that I want Mary should know. A
little while ago he told me that he really believed I was run-
ning low, and that he was going to look elsewhere for money.
He said that he should marry one of the girls, because he
424 SEACLIFF.

felt sure that, if he was once connected with the family, he
could attack Westervelt, senior, to advantage, and get at least
a hundred thousand dollars out of him. He said that he
should choose Mary, and that I must help him by influencing
her in his favor, and by saying things against Mr. Fitz Hugh,
who was the only person that he feared as a rival. I begged
that he would not do it; for I loved Mary too well to wish
her married to such a bad, cruel man; but he insisted so,
and threatened me so, that at last I promised to do just as he
ordered. I never did, however; on the contrary, I said what
I could to prejudice Mary against him; yes, my husband,
I even risked discovery to keep her out of his power. I
want you to tell Mary this, so that she may not hate and
despise me utterly.

“T have lost very little jewelry, this summer, because I
had little to lose. My Geneva watch, my Paris bracelet, my
miniature, and some laces, are all that he has got from me.
He took an emerald which I had given to Jenny, but lost it,
and Johnny Treat brought it back. The girls will see now
why I have been so free of my ornaments. But I have been
obliged to give him about four hundred and fifty dollars since
last June, and I have suffered such treatment as has almost
driven me crazy. Oh, my husband, how is it possible that
you could not see how miserable I was, and why I was so
miserable! But you have been away a great deal, and when
you were at home you were full of your business. A great
many times I have been on the point of telling you every-
thing, but I dared not, and how could I dare? Twice I have
bought poison, and sat looking at it for hours, trying to get
courage to take it, and then have thrown it away,-with a
scream, because I came so near doing it. Very often,-too, I
have taken the dagger which you bought at Naples, when
you thought of travelling in Sicily, and held it to my heart
till I felt as if I should have fainted.

' “Pity me, my dear husband, and try to forgive me. That
is all I ask, and more than I deserve. I am not worthy of
CONFESSION. 425

your affection, not worthy of having been your wife, not
worthy of being the mother of our dear little boy. But oh,
in the name of Heaven, pity me and do not curse me. It
will be hard for you, perhaps.” (“ No, not hard,” murmured
Mr. Westervelt.) “I make you very unhappy; almost as
unhappy as lam. But you have a kind heart. You will see
me once more before I die, will you not? After that I will
ask you for nothing farther.

“T have told you all now that you need know. I have
confessed. all my guilt. There is nothing else to tell ;—I
swear it as before my God.

“Your unhappy wife,
“ ELLEN WESTERVELT.”

Mr. Westervelt did not look up when I ended. He sat
still, his chin on his bosom, his eyes on the floor, his hands
folded, an image of quiescent, helpless suffering. Mary rose
up, the firmest and bravest of the two sisters, notwithstanding
-her inborn gentleness, and, putting her arm around Gene-
vieve’s waist, led her out of the room. Mrs. Van Leer fol-
lowed, sufficiently pale and cast down for decency, but not by
any means the cheerless creature that she had been at this
time the day before, and perhaps disposed to thank God on
the whole that she was not as other women. It is a matter
of much satisfaction and gratitude with me to observe how
heroically most of us endure the misfortunes of other people.
What would become of the human*race if we really loved
our neighbors as ourselves? It would die of a broken heart
before next Christmas. Heaven be praised for that great
conservative quality, that salvatory instinct, that beneficent
though unbeautiful virtue, so absurdly abused by well-mean-
ing but short-sighted theologians and philanthropists, the
Charity that begins at home! I will not attempt to deny,
however, that Mrs. Van Leer may have been somewhat
over-zealous, and, as it were, superstitious in her devotion to
this particular grace.
426 SEACLIFF.

“Mr. Westervelt, now don’t say a word about that money,”
blurted Robert. “ Don’t you offer it, sir. I shan’t touch it.”

“Nor I, either,” added his brother. “ Not a dollar.”

“ But that’s very little,” resumed Robert. “That’s a small
affair. As to the—the—well, the shame of it, I don’t. know
what to say. It’s a hard case for you, Mr. Westervelt. It’s
a.hard case for us, too. She’s our cousin as well as your
wife. We must bear and help bear.”

“Yes,” said Henry; “That’s very true, Bob. Mr. Wes-
tervelt and we must stand by each other.”

“ Gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness,” replied Mr.
Westervelt, seeming to start all at once into a consciousness
of the conversation. “But I cannot keep this property. It
is all yours. I shall repay you, as soon as I can, the portion
that has been squandered and the interest. As to my shame,
I will endure that as well as God will belp me to do.”

It is astonishing how little the lachrymal glands are used
by men of the Anglo-Saxon breed. Masculine weeping
seems to have been quite respectable in classic days ; Socrates
was considered little better than a fool for not crying before
his judges; Cicero had no hesitation about wetting the manly
toga and the senatorial rostrum with pathetic gushings; and,
generally, the heroes and sages of those times were what we
should call a womanish lot in this particular of whimpering.
As for the moderns of other races than ours, they blubber. co-
piously without distinction of sex. I shall never forget my
astonishment when I first saw a moustached Frenchman, who
doubtless would not have hesitated, at the command of honor,
to fight a duel or charge a battery, burst into public tears in
broad noon-day. But here was this timid, sensitive, fragile
man, no hero, the farthest from it possible, sitting dry-eyed in
his dungeon of sorrows, and merely showing a few nervous
twitches of the mouth and hands as Giant Despair turned the
invisible thumb-screws. I had seen him weep, indeed, but it
was with me alone, once only, and then no more.

To all the generous urgencies and expostulations of the
CONFESSION. 427

Van Leers on the property question, he returned no answer
but a monotonous shaking of the head, and at last begged
them, with some little peevishness, to drop the subject.

“Well, sir, wait a while, then, and think of it,” observed
Henry. “But we must finish this Somerville, Bob,” he
added, clenching his weighty fist.

“ Yes, we must,” returned Robert. “T’ll try that. I can
devote my life to that. I’ve nothing else to do; nothing else
particular to live for.”

Mr. Westervelt left the library silently ; and after waiting
a moment to let him escape us if he wished, we followed his
example. He went with slow, trembling steps to his wife’s
room, and called softly “Ellen!” The key turned, the door
opened a little way, there was a sound as of some one kneel-
ing, a sobbing whisper, and he entered. What words passed
in that chamber during the next half hour I partially know,
but may not repeat, because they are set apart, and, as it
were, sanctified by grief and forgiveness,—grief the most un-
comforted and forgiveness the most tender.

The Van Leers were now for driving over to Rockford
and breaking Somerville’s bones without farther delay; but
to this attractive plan of action I objected for fear that it
might result in unveiling the mystery. Much as Somerville
deserved to writhe under some severe and immediate punish-
ment, it seemed best to defer that pressing justice, rather than
make the Westervelts the butt of a county’s scandal in the
very moment that their calamity had fallen upon them. It
cost much reasoning and persuasion to wheedle the brothers
from a vengeance so congenial to their muscular natures ;
but at last they agreed to leave the villain for that day in
peace,—the peace, we hoped, of uncertain terrors and re-
morse,—the peace of demons and the lost. °

During the remainder of the day Mrs. Westervelt kept
herself secluded, allowing no one to enter her room but her
husband and Willie. Toward evening Mr. Westervelt came
to me with a disturbed look, in which I thought I saw the
workings of some new trouble.
428 SEACLIFF.'

“Tam afraid that my wife—I am afraid that she is losing
her mind,” he whispered. “She talks very strangely this
afternoon. I happened to allude to that dreadful paper again.
She denied that she had made any confession; denied that
she knew a person by the name of Somerville; said it was a
very odd name, and burst out laughing at it. What do you
think of that, Mr. Fitz Hugh?. Very singular,—very ab-
normal,—isn’t it? I wish you could see her, but she won’t
allow it.” ‘

“ A physician,” I suggested. “Send to Rockford immedi-
ately.”

“T would—I would,” he began, and hesitated. “ But, you
know—she might say something—might rave about the truth.
Well, never mind; they would call it raving; would think
nothing of it. I will send instantly.”

He sent; the doctor came; pronounced ber sane. Mr.
Westervelt shook his head sadly, and whispered to me that it
was only a lucid moment. He watched her constantly, and
would not suffer Willie to be alone with her, although she
entreated it with tears, saying that now he was the only crea-
ture in the world who did not despise and hate her. It was
eight o’clock in the evening when the doctor went away. The
day had passed in a sort of stupor, without action and without
resolve; we had done nothing with Somerville, nor had we
decided what to do with him, nor what to do with Mrs. Wes-
tervelt, nor what to do with ourselves. In the mean time
destiny was shaping such an end of all, such a punishment
for the guilty man, such a rest for the wretched woman, as
we could not have fashioned short of crime.

During the evening, Mr. Westervelt became more firmly
convinced that his wife’s mind had given way.' A portion of

eher conversation, which he repeated to me, was the very
rodomontade and perplexity of madness. Does it seem
strange to any one, does it seem incredible that she should
now break down suddenly under her guilty conscience, when
she had borne it for years so steadily and without any visible
CONFESSION. 429

signs of great anguish? That pitiless analyst of humanity,
Thackeray, observes, in effect at least, that discovery is the
fang which oftenest introduces the poison, remorse. The
satire is pointed, and barbed also, cutting deep and sticking
fast in the sore of ignoble cowardice which in one form or
another so commonly infects our moral nature; and although
there may be many sincere souls who need no other torment
than their own sharp consciences, yet do I fear that the most
of us can sleep with a certain miserable calmness in sin,
until a strength from without. stings us. Besides, consider
how weakened the mind must become by long struggle to
hide guilt; day by day, insensibly, it fails and grows tow-
ard decay; at last the shock of discovery crushes it at a
blow.

When we retired late in the evening, Mr. Westervelt
noiselessly locked his wife into her room, and then lay down
in front of her door on a mattress brought for the purpose.
I threw myself dressed on a sofa in the parlor, while Robert
took the chamber lately occupied by Somerville, and the rest
went to their usual sleeping places; all of us leaving our
doors open, so that we might hear and be quickly at hand in
case the lunatic attempted to do herself or others an injury.
Her furniture had been quietly searched for arms, and her
blinds nailed on the outside, without seemingly causing her
any surprise or vexation.

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXL.

THE PRESENCE OF DEATH.

oa it often happens to people who sleep badly, and

who will assure you of a morning that they have not

slept at all, I must have dozed a little that night un-
consciously. On a sudden, in the darkness, I had a sense of
coming to myself, and of straining blindly for a moment to
think why it was that I felt such a gloomy recollection or
such a fearful foreboding. Rapidly, instantly, the events of
the day came back upon me, not separately and distinctly at
first, but in a turbid mass, weighing upon me with a sense of
almost physical pressure, and then sharply cleaving the tem-
ples of sleep, as the nail pierced the head of Sisera. I
suppose that every man knows this feeling who has ever
awakened to sorrows past or anxieties future. .

I examined my watch by the momentary light of a lucifer,
and found that it was but a little past one. Next, moved by
mere restlessness or fantasy, I stole in my slippers to a win-
dow of the library, turned the venetians quietly, and looked
out on that part of the garden which fronted the room of
Mrs. Westervelt. No moon shone, but all the seraph stars
let fall their loving light, and I could see that the blinds be-
hind which the unhappy woman was secured were dark and
close. :

I sat there for fifteen minutes or more, revolving a troub-
lous perplexity of thoughts, not once changing my position,
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 431

not once withdrawing my absent-minded stare from the two
nailed windows. Suddenly I had an idea, a consciousness, it
could hardly be called a glimpse, of some moving form in the
garden. JI could not turn my head so quickly but that the
object escaped me, or, rather, at the moment my glance
caught it, seemed to resolve itself into .a shadowy, motionless
clump, which I knew to be a bush of oleanders. Still, some-
thing had moved there, had altogether changed place, had
passed from point to point, I felt certain. It could not have
been the swing of leafage nor the swaying of a shadow, for
there was not wind enough to bend the stem of a lily, nor to
raise a ripple on the Sound, which reflected the stars darkly
but as unbrokenly as a steel mirror. I crouched down to the
window-sill, fixed my eyes on the oleanders, watched and
waited. Presently something like an arm rose with a quick,
wary motion from behind the low mass, and I distinguished a
soft rattle as of a handful of gravel tossed against a blind or
the side of the house. Without asking myself the question,
without reasoning the point, I decided that it was Somerville.
What might be his object, or whether he would be likely to
venture so near his foes at such an hour, I did not pause to
consider, I felt so assured that it was he and no other.

I crept away’ from the window, determined to steal out
there and spring upon him by surprise. Whether I should
call Robert occurred to me, but I dreaded losing time; nor
would I disturb Henry Van Leer, for fear that his simpleton
of a wife might scream ; nor Mr. Westervelt, because he was
too feeble, if not too timid, for an encounter ; and, finally, I
felt myself to be a match for Somerville, alone. Through
the deep hall which led to the rear of the house I slid, un-
locked the door softly, and away on tiptoe along a curved
shrubbery walk which I knew would take me to within a few
yards of the oleanders. On coming in a line with the front
of the wing I halted and glanced at Mrs. Westervelt’s win-
dows. Very considerable was my astonishment, and near
akin to dismay when I saw one of her blinds broad open and
432 SEACLIFF.

her form at the window leaning out, while Somerville stood
below her, apparently beckoning and urging her to descend.
Who broke or bent those stout nails, whether she or Somer-
ville, I had not seen, and no one knows to this day. But
what could this meeting mean? Was her confession a cheat,
her insanity feigned, her subjection to this man willing, and
this an elopement? I did not stop to ask, much less to
answer.

They were so occupied with each other that I crept and
crouched along unobserved until I reached a small arbor am-
bushed in lilacs, which stood between them and the gate, and,
slipping behind one of the high-backed wooden seats, turned
to watch them through the screen of leaves. Just then I
heard a muffled sound, and saw by the dim starlight that
Mrs. Westervelt had leaped to earth. Somerville seized her
arm and drew her hurriedly down the straight path which led
past my hiding-place, glancing backward repeatedly to see
if they were observed. While I was preparing to spring out
upon them they came softly, swiftly, speechlessly into the
arbor, and halted so near me that I might have reached them
with my hand and could plainly hear their quick breathing..,
A broad spray of lilac leaves overhung my face, so that they
would not easily discover me, while I could see them with
tolerable distinctness. Mrs. Westervelt had on a black
silk and was dressed completely, except that her hair was
loose and fell in thick, long twists over her shoulders and
breast, giving a wild grace to her pale, dimly visible coun-
tenance.

“ What have you told?” he whispered, clutching her arm
with a harshness which left no doubt on my mind that he was
capable of striking her.

“ Nothing,” she replied, leaning toward him with a fond,
caressing movement. “But you told too much,. my friend.
You have ruined me.”

She put her hand on his shoulder and looked up in his
face.. “Now I have no one left me in the world but you,”
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 433

she added. “ Will you take me? Come, -you have often
said that you longed to kiss me,—to embrace me. You may
do it now. I will take it as a pledge that you will be true
to me.”

I could not see her face at this moment, but her voice and
manner were those of perfect sincerity. I could dimly see
his face, and he evidently believed her. Looking her steadily
in the eyes with an air half of wonder, half of fascination, he
slid his arm around her waist and drew her softly to him,
bending his head until his lips almost touched her cheek. At
that moment, before the kiss was given, she struck him in the
breast violently. I thought it was only with her hand, for
I saw no weapon, but he gave a loud cry and sprang several
feet in the air, falling face downward across the end of the
bench behind which I was kneeling. She answered his
shriek with another, as full of lunacy as his of death, and fled
away, I did not see whither. I cannot say precisely what
I did in that instant; I believe that I started up with both
hands extended, seeking instinctively to prevent the blow
which had already been stricken;- and yet I knew that.
Somerville was dead, for I knew that nothing but death
could produce such an effect. For once the man of the
world had been fairly surprised.

My first distinct recollection is of lifting Somerville up,
turning him and looking in his face as his head dropped
backward over my arm. The next moment I heard voices,
saw lights, and the family was around me.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Henry Van Leer. “ Fitz
Hugh, did you kill him?”

“No, no! Oh, it’s incredible! it’s incredible!” I stam-
mered. é

They all stared at me horror-struck, thinking that I was
the homicide; my position seemed to testify it, and there
was blood on my hands, my face, and my clothes.

“Ti’s awful,” said Henry Van Leer; “but it’s right. You
served him right, Fitz Hugh.”

19
434 ; SEACLIFF.

“Oh, my God, sir!” groaned Mr. Westervelt. “I am
afraid you have brought yourself into trouble.”

“Tt was not I, I tell you. It was ” and then I recol-
lected that it was his wife. It would not do, however, to risk
hanging or State’s prison merely to save the name of a crazy
woman ; and so, after staring at him one moment, as if to ask
whether he had strength to bear it, I pointed to the open
window. They all looked, and then exclaimed with one
voice, “Oh! did she do it? Oh! it is impossible.”

In a dozen words I told them the revenge and the flight of
Mrs. Westervelt.

“Qh, God have mercy uponjus!” cried her husband.
“ Now it must all be known.”

“But she was mad, father; she did not know what she
did,” said Mary, not, perhaps, fully understanding him.

“Oh! what shall be done! what shall be done!” he
moaned. “Let us bury him! Let us bury him quick!”

“Bury him?” I cried; “and have the body discovered,
and be charged with murder? You are as mad as she. No,
no! Carry him into the house; send for the Rockford sheriff;
tell the whole truth at once. Now, then, help me, will you?
you Van Leers!”

We soon had the murdered man laid on an oil-cloth in that
very library, where, the morning before, he had stood so full
of insolence and wickedness. We felt for his pulse, but it
was extinct, and his face had already lost the hue of life.
All of us started back with renewed horror as the light of the
lamps fell on his person ; for, standing in his breast, standing
in his very heart, was the dagger referred to in the confes-
sion. Robert was about to pull it out, but I caught his arm,
saying, “ Leave it there!”

“Now, Henry Van Leer,” said I, “ ride over to Rockford,
and let the authorities know at once what has happened. The
rest of us will look for Mrs. Westervelt.”

I was perfectly cool again, and glanced at my watch with
as distinct a consciousness of what time was as I ever had in

 
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 435

my life. We got two lanterns from the stables; rammaged
every nook of the garden and grounds; descended the hill,
still searching, and awakened the Treats; sent Ma Treat
up to attend Mrs. Van Leer, who was in hysterics; and,
assisted by Pa Treat, examined the shore and the banks of
the creek. Two hours we wandered hither and thither fruit-
lessly, until the lanterns grew dim in the wide, soft luminous-
ness of daybreak. Not a trace had been found as yet; not a
fragment of woman’s drapery; not a footprint along the
humid beach; but we had often been beguiled into fruitless
chases ; forms had flitted toward us through the gloom and
vanished suddenly ; stumps of trees had put on the shape
of humanity for a delusive moment; we had separated, and
then pursued. each other with breathless haste and calling ;
and at last we sat down by the whispering shore, weariéd out
of all strength and hope. Mary and Genevieve had succes-
sively joined us, and, finally, Mrs. Van Leer, walking in the
strength of Ma Treat. There were also several stragglers
from Rockford, full of sympathy, curiosity, incredulity, and
horror.

“Tt’s a darned likely story,—a woman killin’ a man!” I
heard one of these persons observe.

“ But she’s run away,” remarked another. “ What ’d she
run for if she didn’t do it?”

“ W—al,” drawled the first speaker, as if he would have
said, “I acknowledge that Iam puzzled, but I beg the pub-
lic to suspend its judgment until I can consider the subject
further.”

“T tell you what,—these rich, fash’nble people are just ’s
chuck full of vice and crime ’s they can be, only they hard?
ever let it out,” moralized a third individual.

“JT say, let’s go up and have another look at the dead
man,” resumed the first speaker. “I’m bound to see whether
a woman could done that or not.”

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; and so
several of our Rockford friends hurried off to stare at the
436 SEACLIFF.

corpse which had been found ; leaving us to care as we could
for the lunatic who was still unaccounted for.

“I"say!” exclaimed Pa Treat suddenly. “Till row up
the creek.”

He ran down to the beach and pushed a boat off. Mr.
Westervelt and I leaped in as it floated; and Pa Treat,
placing himself in the stern, sculled slowly away. It was a
quarter of a mile to the mouth of the sluggish black stream-
let where the cutter of the Van Leers and the two or three
sharpees which constituted the marine of the neighborhood
lay moored. Mr. Westervelt and J, leaning over opposite
sides of the boat, sought to peer into the depths of the tran-
quil sea-water, gray, vague, and cloudy under the wan light
of dawn. On reaching the creek, Pa Treat slackened his
speed until the bow scarcely raised a bubble as it gently
pushed aside the smooth, long, curving ripples. Backward
and forward, in zigzags, we glided from bank to bank, ad-
vancing up the stream fruitlessly, until we had nearly slid
into the shadow of a low shaky footbridgé which spanned it.
“Stop!” I shouted; the oar-blade gurgled in the water ;
the boat halted like a poising bird. There, in the calmness
of the gloomy bottom, dimly discernible, was a white face
turned heavenward, two ghastly hands lifted as if in prayer,
and a black, slowly swaying mass of woman’s garments.

“Stop, Square!” shouted Pa Treat, laying hold of Mr.
Westervelt, who, notwithstanding that he could not swim,
seemed about to fling himself overboard. “Tl bring her up.
There may be life in her yet.”

Without another word the old man threw off his hat,
closed his hands above his head, and plunged straight to the
bottom. In a few seconds he reappeared a dozen feet astern,
swimming with one muscular arm, and bearing on the other
the body of Mrs. Westervelt, her long wet hair streaming
back from his shoulder. I lifted her in, and Mr. Westervelt
seized her in his arms, calling and kissing her wildly.

“Row away! don’t lose time!” cried Pa Treat, and
struck out strongly for the bank.
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 437

We spent two wretched, weary hours over the form of the
unhappy woman, using every possible means of resuscita-
tion, only to make sure that the silent water had done a work
that was eternal. She had escaped from her griefs, her
shame, and her madness; and it was mercy, doubtless, that
we could not bring her back to them.

Acknowledging at last, with a feeble moaning, that she
was no longer his, but death’s, her husband consented that
she should be laid out ; and it was done in her bedroom, the
blinds being closed again now, but no need more of nailing.

“ Her hands were folded on her breast, $
There was no other thing exprest
But long disquiet merged in rest.”’

Looking on her tranquil, mild face, softened into that child-
like meekness which sleep often gives and death almost
always, it was nearly. impossible to believe, although we
knew it, that she had lived a miserable forger and died a
crazed murderess. In truth, when we came to think of her
nature and history, it seemed as if her sinless countenance
bore a true witness, and she was not chargeable with a tithe
of the crime which her hands had committed. Her first
guilt had been accomplished unknowingly; her last and
greatest in the blindness of groping unreason. It appeared
as if destiny had ordained her to be the victim of the wicked
man who lay lifeless near her, and had relentlessly blasted
all her prospects of happiness in life by means of him, solely
that in the madness of her death she might become his pun-
isher. Meantime Somerville had been stretched on a settee
in the drawing-room, where a large pier-glass reflected his
pallid face with a ghastliness beyond nature. There they
lay then, in perfect rest, in the terrible amity of death, the
two who had slain each other. It was fearful to pass from
room to room and see the house so inhabited; it seemed as
if death had gained jhe upper hands of life, and as if the
world were but a place to be miserable and to perish in.

A justice had been on the ground since daybreak, examin-
438 SEACLIFF.

ing localities, putting questions and entertaining surmises.
Squire Bradley was a gentleman of good Rockford family,
civil, slow-spoken, gray-haired, with a pear-shaped body, and
a spacious physiognomy, of which the prevailing features
were a portly Roman nose and a voluminous double chin.
He was a sensible, well-intentioned person, I believe, but his
soul was inconveniently overweighted with body and required
long resting spells between ideas. From the general drift of
his sparse and scant remarks, I inferred that he felt it. to be
his duty to arrest somebody. Doubt and mental shortness
of breath troubled him again when he proceeded to decide
upon the guilty one; but at last I had the annoyance of see-
ing that I had fallen under the suspicions of this amiable and
conservative gentleman.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh, I believe, sir?” said he, approaching
me with a smile in which disgust at my moustache was Visi-
ble. “ You saw the blow struck, I hear.”

Myself. “TI did, sir. Iwas almost within reach of her
arm.” *

The Squire. (Arching his eyebrows.) “Oh, indeed !
Bless me! Did the man fall immediately ? ”

Myself. “Instantly. Gave one leap and was a corpse.”

The Squire. (Drawing back a step.) “Shocking! Bless
my soul! Ahem, fall anywhere near you, sir?”

Myself. “Quite near. I.thinked he touched me as he
dropped.”

The Squire. (Looking me fixedly in the eye.) “Ah!
very likely. Little blood on your clothes, I see.”

He now retreated and stood silent a few seconds unbend-
ing his mind. Presently he was approached by a raw-boned,
sandy-haired, squint-eyed man, of intemperate aspect and
odor, whose face I had never noticed before, but whose voice
I instantly recognized. “ sees a darned likely story,
Square,—a woman killin’ a man.”

The Squire. (Fingering his double chin doubtfully.)
“ Think so, Mr. Bunnel ?”
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 439

Bunnel. (Scornfully elevating his single chin.) No sir/
I jest don’t.”

The Squire. “By the way, what ¢s your opinion, Mr.
Bunnel ?”

Bunnel. (Turning his eye at full cock upon me.)
“ Square, I can’t abide mustachers.” (The rascal had a
shabby red beard of three days’ growth.) “Where there’s
mustachers, there’s the devil. Square, no woman could
struck such a blow.”

The Squire. “Possible! Well?—Oh, I see. So you
think—eh ?”

‘What more Mr. Bunnel thought did not reach me, for he
whispered it in a closely confidential way which must have
been very offensive to the Justice’s olfactories ; indeed, I
saw the latter take a bit of flag-root or calamus out of his
vest-pocket and slip it into his mouth as if to counteract the
vile perfumes which invaded his respectable countenance.
Presently he began to back away, while Bunnel followed him
up, venting upon him that rich respiration, worth three cents
a breath surely, at the lowest price of alcohol. The Justice
escaped at last, and advanced once more upon me.

“Was Mrs. Westervelt a strong, muscular woman, Mr.
Fitz Hugh?”

Myself. “Quite the contrary. Most people become
strong, however, during a paroxysm of lunacy.”

The Squire. (Chewing his flag-root between phrases ;
one bite for a comma, &c.) “ Exactly. Thing is to prove the
lunacy. Found any blood on her clothes, Mr. Fitz Hugh ?”

Myself. “I have not, really. If any reached her the
water must lave soaked it out.”

The Squire. “Possible. Worth considering. So you
were watching them?”

Myself. “Yes, L intended to prevent the escape of Mrs.
Westervelt.” . é

The Squire. “Just so, of course. But that might have
led you into a fight with Mr.—Mr. Somerville, eh ?”
440 SEACLIFF.

Here he abruptly retired and gave himself another inter-
val of mental repose. We had several such conversations,
the result of which, I believe, was to fix the Squire in the
opinion that some of us, probably myself, had murdered
Somerville and then drowned Mrs. Westervelt, after the
fashion of Turkish and Italian vengeances.

All this while the house was encumbered with a crowd
which increased momently’; 3 and in consequence, the Wester-
velts, father and ‘children, as well as Mrs. Van Leer, shut
‘themselves away up stairs. Ma Treat went from room to
room, persistently urging tea, &c., quoting the Bible with
references after her custom, and doing her quaint best to
inspire thoughts of comfort. Mrs. Van Leer had repeated
‘fainting fits and hysterics, and Genevieve sobbed or wrung
“her hands almost uninterruptedly, while Mary wept at times
also, but for the most part remained firm and self-collected,
troubled by grief indeed, but not by unreasoning terror.
Such is the story that I afterward got from Ma Treat, who
‘could not sufficiently praise the meek, tearful fortitude of our
favorite, our darling.

Willie Westervelt stayed in a separate room with his nurse
and Johnny Treat, playing gayly all the while, for though he
had been told something of the night’s horrors, he had not
comprehended the story. “Let him be,” whispered the cry-
ing Bridget s “ he'll understand enough when he sees the poor
mother.”

It was about ten o’clock, when Squire Bradley addressed
me for the twentieth time. “Mr. Fitz Hugh,—you seem to
have charge of things here,—let me introduce you to our
coroner, Mr. Capers.”

Our mild friend shook hands with me mournfully, and
hoped that I was well.

“T suppose the jury may as well sit now,” continued the
Squire. .“ First,—well, hadn’t we better take Mr. Somer-
ville first? Don’t you think so, Mr. Capers? So I should
say. This way, if you please, gentlemen.”
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 441

But the inquest will add nothing to what we know, and so
let us pass over it.

I will only mention one particular, of breathless interest to
myself, if not of vital importance. Mr. Bunnel’s opinion that
where there’s mustachers there’s the devil, had spread widely ;
and all those anxious, silent people who crowded the room
gazed at me as earnestly as at the dead. Every question
that was put me seemed to say, Thou art the man! Once or
twice, also, I overheard an unpleasant whisper in the press
about “the bad look of the tall fellow,”-an appellation which
I more than suspected was meant for myself. At last Mr.
Westervelt awakened, as out of a trance, to the meaning of
the scene, he rushed away with a wild air, and returned
bringing the confession of his wife, which he thrust into the
coroner’s hand, saying, “ Read that.” It was read aloud, and
suspicion fell from off me, like rent manacles. The Justice.
gazed at me apologetically; the coroner almost smiled with
pleasure; the whisperings behind me changed to friendliness ;
the “tall fellow” had become good-looking. °

The verdicts returned were, in substance :—Somerville,
death by the hand of Mrs. Westervelt :—Mrs. Westervelt,
suicide resulting from insanity. ‘The jury broke up, the
crowd gradually quitted the rooms, and we were left in peace!
with our dead. ;

I had already telegraphed to the father of Somerville.
Mrs. Van Leer, hysterical as she was, controlled her mind
sufficiently to remember his address the instant that I de-
manded it. Had she been on her death-bed, I believe that
she could have conversed quite rationally and comfortably on

_the subject of Fifth Avenue; and the Somervilles were a
grade above Fifth Avenue, having been rich, martial, official
and renowned, long before the birth of our parvenu republic.
It was a Hudson River family, dating from the times of that
Duke of York who subdued Peter Stuyvesant and left his
own ugly name to the city of the island of Manhattan. Mrs.

Van Leer took an evident pleasure in explaining to me that
19 *
442 SEACLIFF.

Mr. Somerville, senior, lived in New York during the winter,
and on his estates near Albany during the summer. She had
talked with him at Saratoga; “dear, charming old gentle-
man; wish you could know him, Mr. Fitz Hugh.” ;

I sent him two telegraphs, one to each of his residences,
informing him that his son was at the point of death, and re-
questing his immediate presence at Seacliff. About three in
the afternoon a Rockford hack drove furiously up to the gate,
and a tall, thin elderly gentleman stepped out of it and
hastened toward the house. A resemblance between him
and the dead man within induced me to hasten to meet him.
The resemblance was indeed striking: not in form, for he
was taller and slenderer than Somerville; not in expression,
for his was benign, though sad and firm; but in feature he
had the same Greek beauty, high and delicate ; the selfsame
eye, too, dark-gray, commanding and full of light.

“Ts this Mr. Somerville?” I asked, with a hope that it was
not, for I dreaded the interview.

“Yes,” he said, extending his hand with a grave courtesy,
which in such a princely old man seemed benign condescen-
sion. “Mr. Fitz Hugh, I presume. How is my son?”

I shook my head without speaking, for it seemed best to
utter no word.

“What! gone?” he exclaimed. “Do you mean that?.
Oh! is it possible!” Then, after a pause, “You must be
kind enough to show me to him.” —

“Stop,” said I. “The circumstances were painful. I
must prepare you before you go in there. There is another
corpse in the house; there is grief here beside yours. Your
son was stabbed to the heart.” ,

“God have mercy upon him!” he groaned, and was silent
for 2 moment.—“ A rencontre ?” he asked presently. “ Did
he kill this other person ? ”

“T will tell you,—I will tell you. Come this way, aside
from these people. You had better hear all before you go in.”

He followed me into one of the garden arbors, and sat
down, evidently unable to stand.
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 443

“What I have to say is very. wretched,” I began. “You
will hardly believe such things of him as I have to tell
you,”

He put up his hand, but it was in deprecation and not in
denial. “I know,—I know,” he said. “ Perhaps I under-
stand. _ Frank has done this family some great wrong, and
there has been a terrible vengeance.”

“Yes; a great wrong and a terrible vengeance. Mr.
Somerville, by some means which will perhaps be explained
to you, placed the wife of Mr. Westervelt here in his power.
He abused that power terribly.” (The father bowed a woful
assent, as if he knew what his son was capable of doing.)
“ He abused it to such an unendurable extent that at last he
drove her mad. She killed him in her lunacy, and then
took her own life.”

“Oh, my God, have mercy, upon him! have pity upon
me!” he moaned, starting to his feet and turning his face
from me. After some moments he looked at me again, his
dark-gray eyes wet, and a tear on his wrinkled cheek.

“T have long feared an evil end for Frank,—but nothing
like this,” he said,—“ nothing like this! I knew his life,—
knew that he deserved punishment,—but I did not expect
this.”

A little while more of silence, and then he added in a more
subdued tone, “ Will you now be pleased to lead me to him ?
I shall know how to conduct myself. You did well to make
me these explanations, and I thank you. The duty must
have been painful to you.”

“ You will hardly think of seeing any one of the family ?”
I asked as we moved toward the house.

“Certainly not. It would be distressing to them and to
me. You will tell them of my great grief at the harm which
one of my blood has done to them, will you not? See them?
‘oh no! I only wish to take away my boy. Are there any
obstacles to that?—any legal forms still to be complied
with ?”
444 SEACLIFF.

“None. The inquest has been held. I will bring: the
coroner to you after a while, if you wish it.”

“TIf-you please,” ‘he said, with that regal amenity of his, so
dignified and mild under all his grief; so habitual, so instinc-
tive with him that no grief could overpower it for a moment.
Doubtless he did not even know what gentle words’ he used,
and what kind look he bore.

I led him to the darkened parlor and pointed within, but
did not follow him; for who would have dared intrade on
that meeting between the old man and his son?

He is one of nature’s noblemen, I said to myself as I
walked and waited in the garden. I had never seen him
before, and our interview had not lasted ten minutes, yet I
felt as if I had known him for years. It was partly his calm,
sweet courtesy, so like in seeming to deep friendliness, which
wrought this sense of intimacy, and partly that I had been
forced to utter words which reached into the most hidden,
most solemn depths of his soul. I revered and loved him
already, as a good man striving to bear meekly an unmerited
affliction. How like he was to his son! and yet as unlike as
light to darkness; like him in exquisite grace and urbanity,
like him in the natural gift of a noble person and port; yet
in heart and life an utter, astonishing contrast. I am not
talking at random when I speak thus of the character of the
elder Somerville. Let his friends and neighbors, let the poor
whom he succored, let those many who wept. when he died,
bear witness to what he was worth. His whole life after he.
reached the age of manhood, after he came into possession of
the vast social influence attendant on wealth, was in shining
contrariety to the life of his unhappy son. Frank’s history
but shows that money, an attractive person, and fascinating
manners, without unflinching moral principle, form only an
inheritance of temptation. It is the old old story, always dis-
agreeable to hear, and always true. We love rather to be
told of the dignity of humanity, of its invincibility, its godlike
intelligence ; and to believe that man could drive the very
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. AL)

-chariot of Omnipotence, without, Acteon like, precipitating
himself to ruin.

I believe that Somerville, senior, did his best to make
Frank a worthy man, and to reclaim him after he had wan-
dered into vice. His generosity was abused, his authority set
at naught, his entreaties and monitions derided, his family
name stained with debaucheries, and still he continued full
of affectionate long-sufferance. It was not until Frank be-
came a destroyer of innocence that he warned him for the
last time, and then disinherited him. He would neither sup-
port nor own a son who was the enemy of womanly virtue.
Yet his soul still went out after him with anxiety and yearn-
ing, as I had seen plainly in that moment when he learned
the extinction of his hopes, the eternal bereavement of his
heart. Perhaps he thought now that he had been too hard,
and that forgiveness would have been a stronger saviour than
justice. Such a feeling was instinctive and almost irrepres-
sible. But just? Who can sound sucha mystery? The
human nature partakes of infinity, and one heart is not like
another. For my part I believe that, no matter how the
younger Somerville had been treated, he would have con-
tinued the same. He was one of those intelligent misdoers
who choose the broad road with a full consciousness of its
evil; one of those splendid sinners who shine and dazzle like
fallen seraphs as they move through the blackness of dark-
ness; and for such there is rarely passion of repentance, res-
olution of saintly change, redeeming persistence in goodness.

When Mr. Somerville came out to me, he was sad in face
but tranquil in voice and manner.

“Will you present me now to the coroner?” he asked.
“Tt will be proper that I should hear the story from him.”

I led him into the library, where I had already seated Mr.
Capers, and left them together. In half an hour he sought
me out again, and signified that he should return immediately
to Rockford to make preparations for carrying his son’s body
home.
446. : SEACLIFF.

“You may think it strange that no one came with me,” he .

said. “TI have only a daughter left, and she is now abroad.”

-No other son! The last of the name! The heart know-
eth its own bitterness ; but how can it understand the bitter-
ness of another?

I offered no reply except to beg that he would let me
attend to the arrangements at Rockford. He thanked, me,
but declined, and, touching his hat, hastened: back to his
carriage. In an hour he reappeared, followed by a hearse
containing a coffin, which he had found ready made in the
shop of the Rockford undertaker. The Van Leers and I
laid Somerville in the narrow case and lifted it into the hearse.
He was dressed in his ordinary morning suit, his white hands
folded across his full chest, and his face wonderfully hand-
some still, though the clear eyes were closed and the healthy
cheeks faded. We removed our hats, almost unconsciously,
for the mystery of death, no matter in whom incarnated, has
a venerable sanctity.

The bereaved father seemed affected by this conduct in
men, who, as he well knew, had reason to curse the name of
Somerville. “Gentlemen, you are very kind,” said he. “I
thank you, and hope we shall meet again. There is a better
world than this. God bless you!” .

Henry Van Leer looked very serious, and there was a
dimness in Robert’s: eyes.

“What a good old man!” said the latter, when the hearse
had passed beyond the gate. “Oh, Fitz Hugh! what a
different place Seacliff would have been, if Somerville had
been as good as his father!”

“ Yes, indeed, Robert!) By one man’s sin death entered
Seacliff, and all manner of shame and sorrow. But for
Frank Somerville it might have been a quiet home, with no
more of the troubles, and with more, perhaps, of the pleas-
ures, than ordinarily flock around an American household.
How he had turned weakness into wickedness, and made
innocence miserable! What deceiving mists of hateful sus-
THE PRESENCE OF DEATH. 447

picions, what shattering, though invisible winds of rage and
terror, what a cruel reality of unconcealable mischief, had
his presence occasioned! When we thought of what he had
done to torment us, who had never harmed him, it seemed as
if he could hardly be human. Once more I recollected
Dante’s tale of Branca Doria, and of the demon who in-
habited his ‘body and bore his name and wore his clothes,
working mischief on earth in his stead, for long after the
human spirit of Doria had gone to his own place.

But he had departed now, body and spirit; and it seemed
as if the light shone freer through our windows. He had not
done all the mischief that he intended ; he had not sundered
two hearts that Love had joined together; he had the will
for it and perhaps the cunning, but not the time. That
evening, finding myself by chance alone in the parlor with
Mary, I unreflectingly broke out with an exclamation of
pleasure that that terrible corpse had taken its shadow off our
floor. “It seemed to gloom the whole house,” I said; “ it
filled it with a sense of crime as distinct as the smell of
blood ;—I felt as if it were perpetually interposing between
me and you. And yet it does not.”

“Tt does,” she replied. “It 7s between us. Mr. Fitz
Hugh, you must give me up now. Did I not tell you so?
You may do it, and you must.”

“TJ will wait, Mary,” said I;. “but not give you up.”

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXII.

FUNEREAL.

LL this while it is still theesame long, long day. As
I stood on the bluff with Robert, facing, but hardly

seeing a sunset “which far outshone the wealth of
Ormus or of Ind,” it seemed as if weeks or even months had
rushed vehemently away since that hour of murder and sui-
cide. After every great calamity, every supreme anguish,
there is a period when life is not properly measurable by
the tickings of a clock, but only by the throbbings of emotion,
which beat so cruelly that we can think of naught else, and
so swiftly that they cannot be counted, and thus seem num-
berless. Then time spreads out into gigantic spaces, over
which the troubled soul circles wearily, like a land-bird lost
in mid-ocean. ,

“It’s mighty odd that Westervelt, senior, don’t come,” Rob-
ert observed. “He was telegraphed to before daylight. If
a.son of mine was in such an awful muss, I should be along
the first chance.”

Five minutes after this we heard the far-away rumble, and
saw the long trailing smoke of the evening train from New
York; and in ten minutes more a hack appeared on the Rock-
ford road, rolled across the plain at a gallop, labored up the
hill, and halted at Seacliff. Mr. Westervelt and his children
had seen it approaching, and were at the gate. Robert
sprang forward, but a word from me checked him, and we
FUNEREAL. 449

stood at a distance while the Westervelts walked sadly into
the house, talking softly together, but not looking in each
other’s faces. :

Half an hour afterwards, judging by the lights, that they
were all up stairs, Robert and I ventured into the parlor.
Westervelt, senior, was there alone, holding a roll of paper in
his hand, and stamping up and down the room with the grim,
granitic air of a funeral obelisk. He had evidently gone
right to work upon the present emergency, after the fashion
of a true business man, and made it his first duty to master
the case by reading the confession of Mrs. Westervelt. _

“Mr. Fitz Hugh!” said he, saluting me bluntly, and, as it
were, angrily. Then, turning to Robert; “Who is your
friend, sir?”

I presented a very respectful and humble-browed gentle-
man, Mr. Robert Van Leer.

“ Oh—ah—yes,” replied Westervelt, senior. “Beg your
pardon, Mr. Van Leer. Remember seeing you now, sir, at
my son’s marriage with your cousin. Sir, I offer you my
condolence. ‘Your cousin’s death is a shocking affair, to you
and to us.”

“ Horrid, sir!” observed Robert, earnestly. “ Awful thing,
all the way through.”

“ Yes, sir. But there’s one comfort. That Somerville has
got his quietus,—got his deserts, sir.”

“ T have just finished reading your cousin’s confession, sir,”
he added, holding up the manuscript, sternly. “I never
heard of such a rascal as that in all my life. Why, sir, if
he wasn’t dead, I could have him kept in-jail till he rotted.
State’s prison offences, sir!”

“That’s a fact, sir,’ responded Robert. “I feel very sorry
to think of poor Ellen. She had a dreadful hard life of it.”

“Humph! All her own fault,” observed the old man.
“ She shouldn’t have defrauded, you. By the way, we must
see to that, at a proper time ; yes, we must settle that.”

“Oh! it’s of no consequence,” said Bob, eagerly. “We
don’t mind about that.”
450 SEACLIFF.

“ But it 2s of consequence, begging your pardon, and I do
mind about it,” retorted Westervelt, senior. “ However, an-
other time,—another time. Mr. Fitz ae can I see you
alone, sir?”

At this hint Robert slid meekly out of the room, and left
me to the old gentleman. He stood silent and absent-minded
for some moments, as if the tragedy of the day had been suf-
ficient to dissipate even his powers of concentration.

“Mr. Fitz Hugh, I want to know how we are to treat you,”
he at last said, or rather sighed. “You have been accepted
into, our family ; but now the family name has been dishon-
ored. You are not bound to hold to your engagement. My
granddaughter, my son, and I,—we all absolve you. You
are welcome to go, and we shall think no worse of you. Con-
sider this, but decide as early as possible,—say this evening.”

“I have already considered it and decided upon it,” I re-
plied. “My heart and will are just where they were. Noth-
ing has happened, and it seems to me that nothing could
happen to detach me from Miss Westervelt.”

“ Think well of it,” said he, putting his hand on my arm
gently and almost affectionately. “You have proud relatives
and an old name,—if that counts for anything. Do you know
what you are about? The murder and the suicide are in the
papers to-day ; the swindle will be in them to-morrow. There
will be all sorts of shameful suspicions and exaggerations.
The name of Westervelt will become a byword. We shall
see men’s fingers pointing at us everywhere; we shall hear
people whispering about us; we shall be notorious.” (Here
the old man’s voice shook a little, and he had to reinforce it
with ahem.) “The mere fact that such a fellow as Somer-
ville has stayed so much in the family, may be enough to
blacken the fame of our girls. Their guilty mother-in-law
will haunt them like a ghost. Do you wish to marry into
such a family? Think before you answer.”

“ Mr. Westervelt, I assure you that I have thought it all
over, seriously and calmly,” I replied. “TI still wish to marry
FUNEREAL. 451

Miss Westervelt ; wish it as much as ever I did, and more!
I will wait for her, but I must have her.”

After looking in my face for-a long time, as if to see
whether there was any shade of doubt or deception there, he
took my hand and shook it warmly.

“T thank you,” said he;—“I do thank you earnestly. I
am glad to find some strength in you,—some true devotion.
I take this as a kindness, not to my granddaughter alone, but
also to myself. I am personally obliged to you.” -

“This affair cuts me up terribly,” he continued, after a
moment’s silence. “I can’t bear to see my family an object
of scorn ;—set up, as it were, in the pillory, for every scandal-
monger to throw his rotien eggs at.” (His trumpet of a voice
again missed a note here, and he got it back to its sonorous
natural pitch with difficulty.) “I made the name respectable,
and I wanted it kept so. Now this rascal of a Somerville,
and this simpleton of a Mrs. Van Leer Westervelt, have
blacked it for a whole generation. What under the heavens
God makes knaves and fools for is beyond me to imagine.
It appears to me a miserable investment of flesh and spirit.
Well, we must take life as we find it, and fight through as we
can. Jt seems to me like a wearisome, unprofitable, disap-
pointing business now, notwithstanding that I am what the
world calls a successful man:”

Was it not really touching, this sigh of a millionaire ?
Stocks, bonds, granite blocks, city lots, Western lands, two
thousand ton clippers, and all the other architecture of gi-
gantic wealth had been for the moment dissipated into thin
air by one blow of a feeble-minded woman. The rich man
had learned that he could build no sure refuge from calamity ;
and the discovery humiliated him with a sense of impoverish-
ment difficult to bear. 7

“Stay here a moment,” he observed presently. “Tl bring
my wife down to see you.”

When he reéntered, it was with his usual positive, self-
confident manner, as if he had been brushing up his courage
452 SEACLIFF.

for the benefit of the timid natures up stairs. Mrs. Wester-
velt followed him softly, her meek, white face meeker and
whiter than ever, and her eyelids red with weeping. I pre-
sume that her husband had informed her of our conversation
concerning the marriage, for she came to meet me eagerly
and shook both my hands with affectionate earnestness.

“Oh, how dreadful this is, Mr. Fitz Hugh!” she whis-
pered. “ We feel almost crushed by it.”

“Pooh, nonsense! wife. We are not crushed so easily,”
shouted her husband after the old boastful fashion. “I should
like to know who would dare try to crush us.”

“Tt isn’t other people I care for,” sighed Mrs. Westervelt.
“Did you think we should never come to you?” she asked,
turning to me. “We have been away, and got home only
this afternoon. We received your message at the door, and
came up by the next train. What do you think of my poor
son? Will he be able to bear it?”

“TJ have hardly spoken with him to-day,” I replied. “He
has his children.”

“Oh, yes! Dear children! What would he do without
them! Well, I must go back and sit with him. I can’t bear
to leave him alone now, you know. We have left him alone
too much of his life already.”

Out of the room and up stairs she stole, with a step as
quick and soft as a girl’s.

“ Yes, she’s right,” muttered Mr. Westervelt, after he had
walked up and down two or three times. “We have left
him alone too much. It’s not my wife’s fault.—Mine !—Mr.
Fitz Hugh, if you ever have a son and he disappoints you,
don’t get out of patience with him. We must have pa-
tience in this world. It seems late at eighty to be learning
such a simple lesson as that; but I am only just learning
it.”

Is there any more pleasant and improving spectacle than
that of a man, who, having passed great part of his life in
bullying other people, at last finds himself bullied by his own
FUNEREAL. 453.

conscience? The sight is not a common one, I admit; but it
pleases Heaven to exhibit it occasionally ; about once, per-
haps, in an angel’s visit.

At last and at last this weary day ended. I had scarcely
slept for more than forty hours, and the first touch of the
pillow threw me into a heavy, painful slumber. It was lux-
ury compared with our woful waking life, and I fairly spited
the morning light because it brought with it recollection and
anticipation. _

That day we were to bury the wife, the mother, the suicide.
Westervelt, senior, who, from the moment of his arrival, di-
rected everything, had arranged that we should leave Rock-
ford in the eleven o’clock train, reach New York at half-past
twelve, take carriages and drive directly to Greenwood Cem-
etery. The grave, the hearse, the coaches, the clergyman,
had all been ordered the- previous evening by telegraph.
The old business man attended to everything, and saw the
entire programme carried out as accurately and punctually
as he would have delivered a consignment from one of his
clippers. At the New York station we were joined by his
two married daughters and their husbands. It was half-past
two when our hearse and its following of four coaches halted
beside the conspicuous grassy knoll in Greenwood which
awaited the coming of all the Westervelts.

“TI won’t have a vault,” the Senior had said to me in
the cars. “Vaults are absurd, sir. I prefer the good old
way.”

There was neither monument nor headstone on the knoll,
but a far mournfuller object, something with no beauty nor
resignation in it, the pile of fresh earth which flanks a new-
made grave, and in the summit of it two spades standing
awry. All about this harsh deformity, in sweet contrast
with it, the grass was daintily green, loyal still to the bygone
summer. Here and there tufts of dwarf pine; here and there
the waxen gleam of snowdrops; here and there a mountain
ash, throwing out its sprays of crimson. Over all, high in the
454 SEACLIFF.

September wind, which blew with a faint whisper as of talk-
ing waves from the southern ocean, two hemlocks sighed and
a noble elm waved its long garments of shadow.

‘As we halted, two men, evidently the sexton and his assist-
ant, left the grave and came to open the gate of the enclosure.
One carriage was there before us, and a clergyman in a gown
now descended from it. Beside these three and the fourteen
who composed our party of mourners, the drivers and two of
the Westervelt servants, no one was present. Better thus,
far better than to be attended by a curious and scandalized
multitude, struggling to obtain a view of the poor suicide’s
cold face, and prating to each other in loud whispers of the
forgery which she had consented to, of the murder which her
small hand had done, and of the foul suspicions which stained,
so unjustly, her matronly name.

The coffin was borne to the grave-side by the sextons and
the two old waiting-men of Westervelt, senior. The hus-
band followed, supporting Genevieve and leading Willie;
then Mary, leaning on my arm, and then the Van Leers ;
lastly the Westervelts of New York. The clergyman per-
formed his office with a sad and almost stern conscientious-
ness. The service was brief and painful; no pious assurance
nor consolation; no blessed hope of a sinless resurrection ;
but a mournful surrendry as to uncovenanted mercies; a
tearful plea for pity on the afflicted ; and then dust to dust,
ashes to ashes.

Willie Westervelt held his father’s hand, wonderingly ob-
servant of the grief in all these loved faces, constrained out
of his childish gayety by it, but evidently not fully aware of
its meaning It was the first-time that he had ever looked
upon the strong tranquillity of death, and he had no conception
of its unflagging, pitiless endurance; he perhaps expected
that his mother would soon open her eyes from that strange
sleep, rise out of the coffin, kiss away his uneasiness, fondle
him as of old, and go back with him to Seacliff. Over and
over he looked up into the dim sorrow of his father’s eyes,
FUNEREAL. 455

with a faint smile, half questioning, half encouraging, which
changed nature and grew piteously tremulous as the ceremony
verged towards its end, and the gloom of it chilled more sen-
sibly through him. At last, when he saw the coffin let down
into the earth and left there, when he heard the first cruel
crash of gravel on the hollow-voiced lid, the whole meaning of
the scene, all the completeness and eternity of his loss, seemed
to burst. upon him. With a loud cry he desperately caught his
father’s hand and dragged him forward to the brink of the
grave. He did not say a word, but his eyes and one little
outstretched, imploring hand pleaded for-his mother. Then,
seeing that there was no hope, and that his father either
could not or dared not prevent that horrible deed, he burst
into violent sobs, and, rushing back to Mary, hid his face in
the folds of her dress. Through her the sobs reéchoed ;
through all of us, even to the coldest.

The burial was over. The sepulchral knoll had received
into its bosom the first Westervelt. The shadows of the elm
were to be no more withdrawn from her until it should fall,
and the mourning hemlocks were to sing as long as they
lived over her last slumber. Winter drifts, young grasses
of spring, summer rains, dead leaves of autumn, were hence-
forth to be her visitants, clothing her abode with what beauty
God giveth them, and saying forever above her in voices
audible to all gentle spirits, “ Compassion! Peace!”

As we passed out of the cemetery another funeral proces-
sion met us, and through the window of the first carriage we
saw the noble, mournful face of the last of the Somervilles.
We shrank back, though he did not look up: he was gazing
steadily down, as into a grave :sthere was a dead man who
stood between him and all the living. We passed each other,
going opposite ways, never more to meet, but shadowed by
the same calamity.

Through the quiet of Brooklyn, through the thronged |
streets of New York, noisy with life, unconscious apparently
of death, we drove as hurriedly as possible to the house of
456 SEACLIFF.

Westervelt, senior. The New York relatives went to their
own homes; our Van Leer friends to a hotel. .

In the evening the elder Westervelt requested me to ac-
company him in a call on the two brothers, observing that
there was a matter of business between bim and them which
ought to be settled without further delay. Arrived at the
Everett House, we inquired for the Messrs. Van Leer, and
were shown into a private parlor.

“Good evening, Mr. Westervelt. How d’ye do, Fitz
Hugh?” was their salutation.

“Very sorry my wife isn’t able to see you,” continued
Henry. “This awful business, -you know, has completely
worsted her. She went straight to bed as soon as she got
here.”

“ My compliments to her,” said Mr. Westervelt. “I had
no idea of troubling her, though; not a proper occasion.
Gentlemen, I came to see you.”

“Very happy, sir,” observed. both the brothers, politely,
and bowing a little, as men ought to millions.

“ About business,” prosecuted Mr. Westervelt. “It’s no
time, I am aware, for ordinary operations; but this is an
affair which demands immediate attention. I have a debt of
honor and I must pay it, or I shan’t sleep. Gentlemen, a
person who once belonged to my family defrauded you out
of sixty thousand dollars. I have calculated it at compound
interest, seven per cent., as you will see by looking at this
paper. Here are two checks which cover the total. Here,
also, is a receipt. Will you be so good as to examine the
checks and sign the receipt.”

“Mr. Westervelt !” deprecated both the brothers, hanging
back from the table on which the old man had successively
laid the papers.

“Tf you want time to verify the accounts, I will give you
till to-morrow noon,” said the Senior. “I shall be ready to
receive you at my office and settle the matter,—say at one
o'clock precisely.”
FUNEREAL. 457

Henry looked perplexed, and was silent. Robert screwed
up his courage and stammered out, “ Why—Mr. Westervelt
—the fact is—we’d made up our minds not to touch this—
not the first red cent of it, sir. She was our cousin, and we
was quite willing she should have it.”

“ Nonsense !” returned the old merchant, impatiently.
“She cheated you out of the property. She was my son’s
wife, and he is indebted to you for it. You must take your
own money, gentlemen ; you must take your own money.”

After an embarrassing discussion, in which the brothers
showed as much generosity of soul as awkwardness of man-
ner, they gave way before Mr. Westervelt’s Quincy granite
steadiness.

“Well,” said Henry, “I suppose we must take it. It’s of
no great account to us, but it’s a good deal less to you; and,
since you insist upon it, why IJ suppose Bob and I must take
it. We did want to show that we had a kind feeling towards
poor Nelly’s husband and child. But you won’t let us. So,
Mr. Westervelt, there’s my name. Now, Bob.”

Robert added his clumsy signature to his brother's, and
Mr. Westervelit stowed the receipt away in his gigantic
pocket-book.

“Won't you take a glass of wine?” asked Henry.
“ Sorry I didn’t think of it before. You must be dead beat
out, sir.”

“ No, thank you; no occasion,” responded Mr. Westervelt,
bracing himself up very stifly, as if to show that he was not
in the least beat out. “I must go back to my family. My
respects to Mrs. Van Leer; hope to see her better soon.
Good-evening, gentlemen.”

“What a h—lIlof an upper lip the old cock has!” I
heard Henry Van Leer remark as I followed the senior out
of the room. Let not my good readers, my best readers, be
angry with the poor man for using this comprehensive word
which I have dared to only half spell ; let them lay the sin,

not to the wickedness of his heart, but to the incompleteness
20
458 SEACLIFF.

of his vocabulary, which was very often inadequate to his
conversational necessities. Had he known how to analyze
the character of Westervelt, senior, in clear decent English,
he would not have been reduced to swear.

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Westervelt, when we had got
into the street. “I’ve paid up that family. I’ve seen the
last of it, I hope. Now sir,” (taking my arm as fiercely as if
he were going to garrote me,) “I wan’t to tell you my plans.
I shan’t bully my son any more; he can’t stand it now; and
Tm sick of it. I shall support him out of my own pocket
liberally, and settle a hundred thousand: on his children.
Mary will take her third immediately. That will make
something over sixty thousand between you and her... Don’t
"you lose it, sir! If you do,” (here he swelled indignantly) —
“if you do” (here he suddenly collapsed)—“ you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, sir!”

He had been about to bully me, to threaten me with star-
vation, I suppose, in case I lost my property; but the
remembrance of his son, of the ill effects of bullying in that
instance, and of all the sorrowful mystery now just terminated,
had come across him; and so his blustering intentions wilted
into a very harmless affirmation indeed.

The next day a hundred or two thousand of New Yorkers
breakfasted on our family horrors. It is not generally ob-
served what a large proportion of our population, even in
the most educated and Christian places, where the school-
master is abroad and the minister speaks with authority, is
composed of jackals and hyenas, highly respectable, to be
sure, but body-snatching. In truth I am afraid that the
gentlest of us have something vampyric in our nature, and
can occasionally make a meal off a freshly killed corpse with
excellent relish. How we did enjoy Dr. Parkman and Dr.
Burdell, even weeks and months after they had been in their
graves! The “Seacliff tragedy” furnished columns of copy
to the morning papers; every hungry editor rushed in for
his morsel, to cook it up into a savory leader; and it was
FUNEREAL. 459

understood that all the illustrated journals would, as soon as
possible, gratify the public palate with drawings of the site
and the scene. One flight of vultures and buzzards scented
out the two graves in Greenwood, while another spread
stronger wings and snuffed the blood-tainted air of our for-
saken dwelling. In the streets newsboys cried the “ Somer-
ville murder;” in the hotels every drummer treated “his
southern or western victim to it; in the saloons the hostess
served her visitors with “the particulars.”

Any place at such a time was a refuge compared with the
immense publicity of New York; and we hurried back to
our blood-stained, crime-stained, but isolated and tranquil
home of Seacliff. It was evening when we reached it ; not
a soul was moving in the grounds; the lower masses of the
house were hung with palls of shadow; the upper windows,
free from foliage, were spectrally alight with moonbeams ;
fearful was the silence, the loneliness, the recollection. How
different, how opposite, had Seacliff become to what it was
when I first knew it! How had the wickedness of one man,
and he not of us, blighted for us all memory, all anticipation,
and made our little world a fallen one!

We tried to nestle into our home and warm it into some-
thing like comfort; but the house had been chilled utterly,
incurably, by the presence of those two corpses; worse still,
they themselves were there, and could not by any means be
got away. We had carried them out with our own hands,
and seen them depart for distant graves; but they had re-
turned again, and we beheld them daily in the hall, in the
library, in the parlor. They infected every room with the
effluvium of death just as truly and as insupportably as if
they had physically mouldered away there, and tainted the
atmosphere and spotted the boards and walls with their cor-
ruption. How could we live in a house poisoned with such
a body of death and sin !

The Van Leer brothers came up and passed a day, but
only to collect and carry off their luggage.
460 SEACLIFF.

“It’s awful here, isn’t it?” Henry said to me. “ My wife
hasn’t got over it yet. She wouldn’t come up, not even to
try and comfort the girls. She begun to cry just as soon as
I urged it. Good-bye, Fitz Hugh. I guess we’ve looked
our last on Seacliff.”

The following day Westervelt, senior, paid us a visit, saw
the corpses perhaps, and took pity on us.

“You can’t stay here,” he said. “New York is better
than this. I?ll take you all,—I mean all you children,—into
my own house. As for Mr. Fitz Hugh, he must shift for
himself ;—that is, Mary, till he goes to housekeeping.”

And so we all fled the spot forever ; the Westervelts going
to the great house in St. Joseph’s Place; and I to the hotel
the most adjacent thereto.

“ Good-bye, Lewy,” sighed Ma Treat, as she made bold
‘to kiss me privately. “I did hope that when you married
Mary, you would come and live along side of us. I ’spose
I must give that up now. This splendid house has got to
be too awful; something between a prison and a grave, like.
Verily, the wages of sin is death: Romans sixth, twenty-
first. Well, good-bye, Lewy. Pa Treat and I will-always
pray for you and for Mary and for all of them. We never
shall forget you; nor Johnny won't either. Good-bye.”

The tears rolled down her old cheeks and dropped unob-
structed on the fresh calico gown which she had put on for
the occasion. She joined Pa Treat and Johnny, standing in
silent woe; and they waved their hands to us, as if in bene-
diction, till we were out of sight.

“T feel anxious about my son, sir,” the elder Westervelt
soon confided to me. I’m afraid of a decline. He wants
occupation, to divert his mind from these awful affairs, sir.
I shall take him into my office, give him some little responsi-
bility—nothing severe, nothing very important, you under-
stand—allow him the run of the books and let him do the
best he can.”

The old man evidently thought that he was extending a
FUNEREAL. 461

great favor, which nothing would have justified but the abso-
lute need that his son stood in of indulgences. I have little
doubt also that Westervelt, junior, was of the same opinion.
His father had achieved power as a man of business, a great
operator ; and he had been ambitious all his life to reach
a similar position of splendor and influence, by the same
means; for to him, bred into an early respect for- business,
the Exchange seemed the most attractive and noble arena
open to genius. It was free to him now; he could strive
in it with a cestus as weighty as any one’s; and doubtless he
found some pleasure in the battle, some forgetfulness of past
SOLTOWS.

But a wounded heart fights no long battle, if it abides in
a sickly body. Before the winter was over, that immortal
chariot which comes at last to every mortal dwelling, halted
at the door, and that still small voice which will not be dis-
obeyed, nor suffer any delay, called to the millionaire, Bring
out your dead! Then the earth of the Greenwood knoll, now
frozen, was opened again, and thte shadow of the funeral elm,
now leafless, crossed the grave of the younger Westervelt.

20 *

 
 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXIII.

TWO YEARS AFTER.

happiest month of human life, whether manly or

womanly, is the month which: immediately follows
marriage. The first philosopher who is supposed to have
discovered this great and delectable fact was our primal an-
cestor Adam; and it is said in learned circles that he arrived
at it, not by intuition, nor by a process of reasoning, nor by
mathematical calculation, but by sweet experience. Since
him innumerable multitudes of other physicists have made the
experiment of matrimony and become converts to the honey-
moon hypothesis. Thus the philosophers of this school have
raised up, and in point of fact, propagated disciples, until it is
probable that no other scientific truth is so widely promul-
gated and so respectably supported as this blessed theory.
Nor is it likely that it will ever lack proselytes until the last
man, coming marriageable, finds himself without a last wo-
man.

That it should be a happier month than any that has gone
before it is to the credit of human nature. It speaks well for
men and women both, that among the multitudinous enjoy-
ments with which their beneficent Maker has crowded earth,
they can find no benison so pure and complete as the right to
love without restraint and to resign one’s self utterly to the
object of love. That it should in general be a happier month

qe is the opinion of certain wise philosophers that the
TWO YEARS AFTER. 463

than any that comes after it is a wise and kind dispensation.
Excess of the sunlight of pleasure will scorch away strength ;
content, altogether self-contained and unbroken, will kill
activity and thus usefulness. The Master of Life did not
make us to be satisfied until we awake in his likeness.

As Mary and I had seen Europe, we took an American
journey. Amid flocks of other brides and grooms we flew
across New York to Niagara, went down the Rapids, saw
Montreal and Quebec, climbed the White Mountains, and
reached Saratoga. It is curious how easily you can pick out
a bride from a crowd of other young women, married and
unmarried. She is so blushing and meek and noiseless; she
colors so violently when she meets an old acquaintance; she
shows in her face such a sweet fear lest every stranger should
suspect her secret ; she looks so happy and so proud of her
husband, yet so ashamed to have it seen ; that, no matter how
costumed, whether in white, brown or black, you detect her
ata glance. “There goes another bride,” we used to hear
people say, unti# Mary got amusingly provoked, and wished
that she had brought along her old dresses. She did not
know, dear child! that there was a new light in her eyes, a
halo of young wifehood on her face, which rayed out the fresh
life of her soul so clearly that none gifted with human sympa-
thy could misunderstand it. Have we not read that Moses,
when he came down from the mount of mystery, was not
aware that his face shone? ‘Toa modest woman marriage is
a great, an almost terrible mystery, full of knowledge never
before conceived and of emotions until then incredible.

At Saratoga we were joined by all the Westervelts, includ-
ing Genevieve, who soon saw herself enthroned, whether she
would or no, as the belle of the season. She was even hand-
somer now in the full bloom of nineteen than I had found her
in the budding flush of seventeen. In manner and character,
too, she was far sweeter ; no longer positive, dictatorial, quick-
tempered and impertinently sarcastic; but possessed of that
most insinuating grace, that most useful talent of womanhood,
464 SEACLIFF.

gentleness. The old corroding grievance which so long fretted
her had suddenly changed into one of those crushing calami-
ties which bow the will and make the heart soft.

She is still in society, more of a belle than ever ; and it is
one of the questions of the day, we think, who shall have her?
I might name several who have tried their luck and failed,
and who are not in the least angry about it, but more or less
resolved to try it again, according to the usual spirit of re-
jected lovers. In the mean time my wife is constantly in
arms, fighting off, first this one, then that one, in the honest
belief that they are not half good enough for her sister. I
charitably hope that she may find herself beaten one day, and
see Genevieve captured by some true prince who was or-
dained of old to cut his way through her guarding enchant-
ments and dragons, and bear her in triumph out of the Castle
of Single Blessedness.

Robert is still in the market, one of the most marriageable
of men, and as he imprudently confesses, dying for a wife.
He is a great admirer of Mrs. Fitz Hugh, but could easily be
brought to forsake her by the right kind of a girl; who, I am
persuaded, would find his heart sound and his two hundred
thousand dollars well invested.

Before consigning Mrs. Van Leer to the oblivion of fash-
ionable life, let us blow a penny trumpet in commemoration of
her growth in the moral graces. I was pleased to observe at
Saratoga that her conversation and deportment were by no
means so gallant as they used to be at Seacliff. She was no
more a she knight-errant in search of amorous adventures,
offering battle to those dangerous giants and caitiffs commonly
known as fast men, and running risk every day of being
swooped upon by the wicked magician, Scandal. The change
in her positively astonished me, for I had not supposed that
she possessed sense enough to take warning from any experi-
ence, however terrible, unless it were her own. I do not
know that her husband was much the happier for this refor-
mation. He was not an exacting, suspicious man, and haa
TWO YEARS AFTER. 465

always, I believe, been pretty well satisfied with his wife,
except during that spasm of fierce jealousy which came upon
him in the hour when our Seacliff demon was unveiled. He
loved his Jule stupidly, and had always loved her so, even
while she was unworthy of it.

By the way, how completely had I been mistaken in this
man and his brother as regarded the interest I should take in
them and the sympathies we should have together ! I thought
at our first meeting that I should find little to note in them,
because they were not handsome nor clever enough to be in-
teresting, not ugly nor vicious enough to be picturesque; yet
I had had to come into passionate contact with them, to watch
their movements, to study their characters, and to acknowl-
edge at times that Van Leer was a terrible name to me.
Would it not have become so if she had consented to bear it ?
Depend upon it that every man has power in him which cir-
cumstances can bring out with effect memorable to some other
man; that the weakest of us is Archimedes enough to move
his earth whenever occasion gives him a proper stand-point.

Mr. Hunter, I am sorry to say, has really become what he
once emptily pretended to be, a dissipated character, and is
as vain as ever of his vices, real and simulated. Whether he
will reform or not is a question sufficiently doubtful to be
almost interesting.

My wife! How shall I speak of her with worthy praise,
yet with worthy reserve! Rousseau says that within two
years after marriage a man does not care whether his wife is
handsome or not; and the remark, absurd as it may appear to
bachelors and maidens, has very little of exaggeration. Let

“it not be supposed that I consider her less perfect in form and
feature than I did once. No; but now her beauty is of less
consequence to me; other qualities of hers have shown them-
selves far more essential to my happiness; it is upon them
that I have invariably found myself falling back for com-
fort when the world went hard; yes, it is ‘her affection
which has become altogether precious, always necessary ;
466 SEACLIFF.

her beauty of soul has made me forget that her person is
lovely..

Well, I will have done. I shall not prate of her; she
demands nothing but silence; she prefers to shine only in
the quiet of my heart; there let her stay until it falls sweetly
to dust.

THE END.
 

 

 

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