“_No. 2— Chesnut Street._
“To Major Leslie Pierpoint:—
“Sir:——”
Here she paused and blushed with something like shame.
“No, this is too cold. I will not offend him.” And she then took a fair
sheet and wrote as follows:
“To Leslie Pierpoint, Esq.:—
“Dear Sir:——”
This address did not suit her. After a few moments’ deliberation she
laid a fresh sheet before her and thus commenced, in a free, decided
way, as if she had fully determined on the mode in which she should
communicate her resolutions to him:—
“Dear Leslie:
“You must have been surprised, doubtless, at my sudden departure
this morning without seeing you. To speak frankly and deal truly
with you, Dr. M——’s shocking communication, being so wholly
unexpected and unprepared for, nearly deprived me of my senses.
You are a witness how I was overwhelmed at the horrid
announcement! Unable to endure the shock, I hastened home
without again seeing you. Since I have been in my own chamber I
have been reflecting upon this fearful destiny in store for you.
Believe me, Leslie, that I would willingly share it with you if
you wished it; but I feel that you are too generous, too noble
to desire to involve in your own misery the happiness of any one
over whose fate previous circumstances may have given you the
right to exercise a certain kind of control! Your own knowledge
of the world, of society, will teach you that your recent
unhappy misfortune has placed our relation to each other in a
new light. My happiness now hangs upon your decision. If you are
_really_ desirous of urging the ultimate issue of our betrothal,
and are willing for your own selfish ends to wreck the happiness
of one so young as I am, I must _submit_; but if, as I feel you
will be, you are, on the other hand, influenced by those high
and generous feelings that distinguish you above all men, and
will freely release me from a union which it will henceforward
be a species of bondage for me to endure, you will relieve my
mind from a painful weight of anxiety and suspense and forever
secure the _friendship_ of
Yours, sincerely,
Clara Clayton.”
The young lady read the letter over carefully once, sealed, directed,
and despatched it without giving herself time for thought. The street
door closed upon the footman who bore it.
“It is gone! Leslie! alas, poor Leslie! alas, that Fortune should have
driven me to this step! But there was no alternative. No time for delay.
If I had still visited him I should have been a hypocrite, and my
prolonged absence would have required an explanation. It was necessary
that I should write as I have. How will Leslie receive it?”
While she is fancying how the invalid received it, let us, dear reader,
really know how he received it.
He had slept not quite an hour when his sleep was disturbed by the
ringing of the street-door bell. Opening his eyes he looked round the
chamber and called in a faint gentle voice—
“Clara!”
There was no reply and after waiting an instant he roused himself: “Ah,
yes, I had forgotten! She has returned home. Poor girl! I sympathise
with her in her overwhelming sympathy for me. So I am to be lame for
life! ’Tis a sad, a heavy misfortune! Ah, mother, I am glad you have
come in. Please draw aside the curtains and let in the light. It is so
gloomy. I have slept well and feel refreshed. Have you heard from
Clara?”
“Her footman has just left this note for you, Leslie,” said Mrs.
Pierpoint, putting aside the curtains.
“Give it me, mother.”
Leslie hastily broke the seal, opened it, and ere he began to read
pressed his lips to her name at the close. Have the kindness to turn
back and re-read the letter, dear reader, with him, that you may enter
into Leslie’s feelings as he perused it. He read to its close without
betraying the least emotion in his expressive face. But when he had come
to the end he slowly crushed the letter up in his left hand till the
nails of the fingers met through it into the flesh. His teeth became set
and his whole face stern and as rigid as marble. His alarmed mother
caught the fearful expression of his fixed eyes and flew to him. He
waived her away with a quiet movement of the hand.
“No, no, do not touch me, mother! I am well, very well;” he said
hoarsely.
“No, dearest child, you are very ill. I will ring for assistance.”
“No—give me a pen—ink—paper too! I would write.”
“The Doctors have forbidden it.”
“But one—one line, dear mother!”
Mrs. Pierpoint looked at him a moment with hesitation and then silently
obeyed. Not a muscle of Leslie’s face moved, but it was pale, very pale,
as he took the pen in his fingers. His hand was steady while he wrote
the following brief reply:—
“_Mr. Leslie Pierpoint’s compliments to Miss Clayton—he assures
her it is far, far from his wish, to place an obstacle in the
way of her happiness._
“_Thursday morning,_
“_No. 27— South Sixth St._”
He directed and despatched it without a word or look of emotion; and
when the servant had left the room he calmly turned to his surprised
mother, whose looks were fixed upon him full of anxious inquiry, smiled
faintly upon her and said, at the same time offering her Clara’s crushed
letter,
“Dearest mother, you would ask me what this means? Read this—it will
explain—_it is eloquent!_ Read it and be so good as never to mention
the subject of it to me again.”
Mrs. Pierpoint perused it in silence and with tears of sorrow and
sympathy for him whose manly heart Clara Clayton had crushed as he had
crushed the letter. The mother and the son exchanged glances and the
letter was folded up and laid aside. From that hour Leslie Pierpoint
never breathed the name of Clara, never looked upon a woman but with
secret dislike and contempt.
From that day also he began to mend. On a temper such as his, treachery,
like Clara Clayton’s, must either be fatally effectual or perfectly
harmless. His haughty and contemptuous spirit did the service of coat
armor in the protection of his heart. It broke not! It remained whole
and manly as ever—but it strengthened itself in its strength against
all future approaches of love.
Whether the soundness of Leslie’s heart extended itself to his limb or
the energy of his proud spirit exerted a commanding influence over the
physical body cannot be ascertained; but the fact is clear that he began
rapidly to convalesce from the day he so cavalierly gave Clara her
freedom. At the end of three months thereafter, after having gone
through the regular course of, first, two crutches, then a crutch and a
cane, and then a single crutch alone, he made his appearance with Dr.
M—— on one side and his only support on the other an ordinary walking
stick! Every where he received the congratulations of his friends and
rejoiced in them; for he had all along felt a triumphant pride in
getting well—a sort of cherished spirit of revenge, though he confessed
it not to himself, upon Clara—false, heartless Clara. It is true he
walked lame with his cane and the doctor, but every day he grew better,
and at length his physicians, contrary to their previous decision,
pronounced that the bones of the leg were properly reunited and that
strength in the limb was only necessary to restore it to its original
sound condition. Tenderly and most gingerly did Leslie nurse his leg and
humor its kindly temper towards health. Time at length rewarded his
care, and at the end of fourteen months from the time he received
Clara’s letter he walked Chesnut street sound in limb and with “the
lofty carriage, distinguished air and noble step” that had captivated
the fancy and won the shallow heart of Clara Clayton.
Leslie, however, never again looked kindly upon woman. He believed the
sex to be instinctively false-hearted and selfish; he acknowledged no
love in her but love of herself, and religiously believed that she
married only for self-interest and that she looked upon men only as
instruments for the gratification of her vanity. No, he never trusted
woman from that time up to the period we have introduced him to the
reader seated in his arm-chair in his library with the gentle snows of
forty-one winters upon his head.
But time aided by circumstances achieves apparent impossibilities.
Leslie Pierpoint possessed a heart that would be a treasure to any
woman; and because one had proved traitorous to its noble confidence,
Love had resolved that it should not always be locked in the ice of
winter—that its summer should come to it again, its seed time and
harvest should return, and fruits and flowers once more bear witness to
the moisture and richness of the long barren soil.
But this change, its progress and extraordinary results, will form the
theme of a Second Tale.
* * * * *
LEAVES FROM A LAWYER’S PORT-FOLIO.
THE STEP-MOTHER.
When I first knew the family of the Wentworths, it was composed of a
husband in the prime of life, a beautiful being his bride, and a sweet
little babe whom they doted on, not only for its beauty, but as the heir
of his father’s large estates. The family was noble, or rather its
ancestors had been so in England, and the estates, now in its
possession, had come down from father to son for several generations,
increasing in value with the prosperity of the country, until they now
afforded almost the revenue of a prince. With the pride of birth,
something of its injustice had attached to the family, for, to maintain
the importance of the name, it had been the custom, ever since the
abolition of primogeniture, to keep the estate entailed on the eldest
son, providing, however, respectable portions for the other children.
The Wentworth lands had thus descended from the present proprietor’s
father, and were intended to go down in the same manner to his eldest
son. I knew little of Mr. Wentworth himself, for he was a proud,
reserved man—but his meek wife had early won on my heart, and from the
hour when I was first called on, as a professional adviser, to give my
opinion respecting some property which she held to her sole and separate
use, under her marriage settlements, up to the latest moment of her
life, my feelings for this singularly amiable woman, were like those of
a parent to a daughter.
Wentworth Hall, where the family resided, was a large, antique, imposing
structure, situated in the centre of an extensive park, and approached
by a long avenue, terminating at one end in the hall door, and at the
other, at the distance of almost a mile, in a massy gateway, guarded by
a porter’s lodge. The house, when I first knew it, was as lordly a
mansion as one would wish to see. I passed it the other day, and it was
in ruins. No human being has slept within its walls since the
development of the dreadful tragedy I am about to relate. God knows I
shudder at the task!
I never saw a sweeter child than the young heir of Wentworth: I think
now I see his little hands, his silken hair, or his soft blue eyes, so
like those of his mother. All loved him. How could they help it? for in
everything he resembled her who gave him birth, and she was one who
insensibly won every heart, and deserved to win them too. But in nothing
was this similarity so striking as in the dispositions of the mother and
child. I do not believe either would knowingly have hurt a fly.
Certainly no traces of the proud irascible temper of the father could be
discovered in the son.
Well has it been said that the good die young. They are exhaled, as it
were, like dew, back to their native sky, just at the very time when we
begin fully to appreciate their worth. The young heir was scarcely three
years old when his mother died. There was grief, and, I believe,
heart-felt grief, up at the old hall for a while,—and then came the
intelligence that Mr. Wentworth had determined to travel, and that,
meanwhile, the young heir was to be left at home with a nurse, and
suitable attendants.
Two years passed away. At length rumors reached the servants that their
master would soon return, accompanied by a new bride. Before long these
reports were confirmed, and then, after a few days’ delay, the newly
wedded pair dashed up to the hall door behind a chariot and four,
decorated with bride favors.
The new comer was certainly a magnificent woman, but oh! what a contrast
to the sweet angel who had formerly filled her place. The first wife was
rather _petite_, with soft blue eyes, and an expression of countenance
almost seraphic; her successor was a tall, splendid looking woman, with
dark flashing orbs, and a face whose haughty beauty was the very
impersonation of a Juno. I know not why, but with all her majesty, I
never liked the second Mrs. Wentworth.
In due time a son was the fruit of this marriage. The babe, like the
mother, was beautiful, and it seemed to me—it may have been only
fancy—that, in the rejoicings at its birth, the elder son, and
undoubted heir, was totally forgotten.
It soon became evident that the new wife was paramount in her influence
over her husband; but, in one thing she was foiled; she could not
alienate his affections from his elder son. She dared not openly speak
against the young heir, but it was evident that she hated him, because
he would exclude her own child from the estate; and though the fortune
of a younger son of the Wentworths would have been an independence to
any one else, yet this grasping woman coveted all for her own darling.
On this point, however, she knew that her husband would prove
inflexible, and that his family pride would be too strong even for his
wife’s persuasions. She did not, therefore, make the attempt. But in
every possible way, especially when her husband was absent, she
contrived to make the life of her step-son irksome and intolerable. A
thousand petty vexations, such as are easier felt than described, and
which no one knows so well how to inflict as a second wife, soured the
early life of the young heir, and, despite his amiable disposition, made
him the most unhappy of beings. The sum of his misery was filled up,
when, his father having been chosen a member of Congress, left the
family at Wentworth Hall, while he proceeded to Washington. From that
hour, whether at his estate or at the capitol of the nation, Mr.
Wentworth was so occupied by ambition that he found no time to unravel
the domestic transactions of his household; so that, deprived of the
check heretofore existing on her conduct in the presence of her husband,
the new wife commenced a more open and oppressive series of petty
persecutions on the young heir, which effectually broke the spirits of
one so delicately constituted. I never saw a greater change in any one
than took place in Herbert Wentworth between his fifth and eleventh
years. From being used to constant exercise in the open air, he was
restricted to the school-room, the library, and the garden. In a short
time his health gave way, and he became pale, weakly, and melancholy.
And this was the once gay and happy boy, with a heart as light as the
carol of a bird! Oh! could his sainted mother have foreseen, on her
death-bed, the destiny that was to overtake her child, how bitter would
have been her parting hour.
Meanwhile the younger son—the darling of the mother—was indulged in
every thing. His slightest wish was anticipated. He was taught every
manly accomplishment of the day, and, at twelve, was already nearly as
large as his delicate brother. He was a skilful horseman, and the best
sportsman on the estates. But he was wilful, passionate and imperious.
So matters went on, until the young heir was nearly eighteen years of
age, when his father took him to Washington with him during the session
of Congress. For the first time emancipated from the thraldom of his
step-mother, Herbert began to be aware of the importance of his
situation, and to become more than ever averse to the tyranny of his
home. He returned to Wentworth Hall an altered being. When his father,
about this time, received an appointment to an embassy to one of the
South American States, he solicited to accompany his parent, but the
request could not be granted, and the young heir was left at home with
Mrs. Wentworth and her son.
The change in the character of Herbert soon became evident to the
step-mother. But, in nothing was it more perceptible than in the
resistance the young heir made to the restraints attempted to be imposed
on him, but from which his brother was exempt. Privileges which Herbert
felt were his, equally with his brother, or to which he, if either, had
the better right, were no longer surrendered without expostulation, or
in some cases without a struggle. One of the great causes of difference
arose from the determination, expressed by the young heir, to shoot on
the estate—a privilege no rational being would have dreamed he was not
entitled to—but which, his pampered brother, habituated to seeing
himself indulged, and Herbert restrained, in everything, took on himself
one day, in a fit of passion, to dispute. Had Mrs. Wentworth been
present, even she would have seen the folly of her son and would have
checked him; but, unaccustomed to be opposed, the wilful boy, when he
saw his brother with a resolution as unusual as it was irritating,
determined to insist on the right, flew into a rage, and, in a moment of
phrenzy, presented his gun at Herbert. A scuffle ensued, in which the
piece went off, whether accidentally or not was never known, and the
young heir fell to the ground weltering in his blood. His life, for some
time, was despaired of, during which time the brother maintained a
sullen silence—but at length Herbert was declared out of danger, and,
in a few weeks more, was completely restored. During this time the
mother did not hesitate to give that version of the story which would,
by throwing all the blame on Herbert, exculpate her darling, so that,
when the young heir left his sick chamber, he found that, except among a
few who knew his disposition better, he was received as an arrogant, and
quarrelsome young man.
This incident, however, had exercised a powerful influence on Mrs.
Wentworth. The very fact that Herbert, whom she and her son had so long
ruled with a rod of iron, should attempt to break loose from the
thraldom, inflamed her almost to madness. From envying, she began to
hate the young heir, and that too with a deadliness of which one would
have thought her incapable. And every day, as Herbert broke some new
mesh of the net in which she had involved him, she learned to hate him
more passionately than before. Indeed, to a woman of her disposition,
nothing could be more galling than to see one, over whom she had been
used to tyrannize at her pleasure, asserting his rights, even, in some
cases, in direct contradiction to her commands, as, for instance, when
Herbert refused, as heir to the estate, to allow some wood to be cut
down which she had ordered to be felled and sold. I solemnly believe
that the haughty step-mother never forgave this act—that the
remembrance of it haunted her night and day—and that it filled up the
cup of hatred, which before was well nigh full, and led to the dreadful
catastrophe which ensued.
I have said the young heir recovered from his wound, but he remained in
an exceedingly delicate state of health, so that the least exposure of
his person was sure to bring on a cold, attended with pains in his side,
at the seat of the wound. However, by clothing carefully according to
the weather, he succeeded, in the course of some six months, in firmly,
as he thought, re-establishing his health, though, it is my firm
conviction, that, from the hour of his wound, his constitution was
effectually undermined. Certain it is, that when Herbert, thinking
himself perfectly restored, ventured one day on a little more exposure
than usual, he was seized with a violent cold, which soon resulted in a
fever of the most desperate character. So fatal were the ravages of the
disease that his life was soon despaired of, and for several days we
hourly expected to hear of his death.
During this crisis, what were the feelings of the haughty step-mother?
She could not be expected to wish for the recovery of the being whom she
hated with such intensity, and, although she was forced to appear
concerned for him, and the best medical attendance was, by her orders,
procured, yet I have not the least doubt that the one burning wish of
her heart, during all that terrible time, was that the young heir might
never recover. His death, indeed, would be the consummation of all her
hopes. It would, at once, place her darling son in possession of the
vast estates of his father—a position at which she could not look
without a momentary bewilderment. As day after day elapsed, and the
young heir grew weaker and weaker, her hopes rose in proportion, and the
prize on which, at first, she had scarcely ventured to look, she now
regarded as almost in the possession of her child. How her heart
leaped—we will not attempt to disguise it—at the prospect before her.
She would be removed from all fear of the interference of Herbert—she
would be saved from the shame of being thwarted as she had been—she
would no longer have a right to remain at the Hall only as long as her
husband lived; and though, under other circumstances, she felt she might
have continued in it to her dying day, yet she knew that Herbert, after
what had passed, would, on his father’s death, cut off all communication
with her. Besides her pride revolted from accepting a favor at the hands
of the young heir. Her own child too! brought up as he had been, with
habits of such lavish expenditure, how would he ever be able to live on
the fortune, handsome though it was, reserved for the younger son of the
house of Wentworth. He had been used to every indulgence; he had been
taught to regard everybody and everything as subservient to his wishes;
in short, he had been educated as the heir rather than as the younger
son of the family—and now, when the vast estates of his father were
almost within his grasp, when only the life of a sickly boy was in his
way, could his mother be expected to look on the death of the real heir
with any thing but complacency? But she dissembled her feelings: the
world gave her credit for the most poignant anguish of mind during the
vacillations of the disease.
“And how is the patient to-night, doctor,” said she, following the
physician out of the sick chamber, and affecting to place her
handkerchief to her eyes; “do you not think he is a little, a very
little improved?”
“I do not wish, unnecessarily, to alarm you,” was the answer; “indeed,
you must have seen the ravages of the disease; but so far from thinking
your son”—oh! how the word grated on her feelings—“any better, I fear
he cannot survive until morning. He is not naturally of a strong
constitution, and this fever would have brought the stoutest man to the
grave. I wonder how young Mr. Wentworth has withstood it so long.”
“Then you cannot give us any hope. Oh! cannot you let us have some, even
the slightest, expectation of his recovery? Do, dear Doctor, only say a
word like it.”
The physician shook his head sadly, for he had become attached to his
patient, and knew nothing of the secret of his companion’s heart—and
departed. The unnatural woman turned to her chamber, and, with a joy we
will not attempt to picture, paced up and down the room. At length, she
thought her wishes were about to be fulfilled; her boy, her darling boy,
would inherit the broad lands she saw from her casement; and she!—she
paused, and muttered—“ah! there will be a vast difference betwixt the
mere widow of the proprietor of Wentworth Hall, and the mother of that
personage.”
In a short time she calmed her transports, and, returning to the
bed-side of the now insensible sufferer, watched there until late at
night, when she retired, with apparent reluctance, leaving orders,
however, to be called should any change be perceptible in the patient.
She had fallen into an uneasy sleep, in which a thousand wild dreams
flitted through her mind, and the clock had just struck the second hour
after her retirement, when a maid-servant knocked at her chamber door,
and saying, that her young master had suddenly awoke sane, and had
conversed rationally with the nurse, departed.
“He is going, then,” muttered the unnatural woman, in a delirium of joy;
“they always are so just before death;” and hastily throwing on a loose
dress, she hurried to the room of the sufferer.