AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS.
“She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near’;
And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late’;
The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear’;
And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’”
_Tennyson._
We left Peek (known in New York as Jacobs) in the little closet opening
from the apartment where Charlton sat at his papers. The knock at the
outer door was succeeded by the entrance of a person of rather imposing
presence.
Mr. Albert Pompilard stood upwards of six feet in his polished shoes and
variegated silk stockings. He was bulky, and could not conceal, by any
art of dress, an incipient paunch. But whether he was a youth of
twenty-five or a man of fifty it was very difficult to judge on a hasty
inspection. He was in reality sixty-nine. He affected an extravagantly
juvenile and jaunty style of dress, and was never twenty-four hours
behind the extreme fashions of Young America.
On this occasion Mr. Pompilard was dressed in a light-colored sack or
pea-jacket, with gaping pockets and enormous buttons, the cloth being a
sort of shaggy, woollen stuff, coarse enough for a mat. His pantaloons
and vest were of the same astounding fabric. He wore a new black hat,
just ironed and brushed by Leary; a neckerchief of a striped
red-and-black silk, loosely tied; immaculate linen; and a diamond on his
little finger. A thick gold chain passed round his neck, and entered his
vest pocket. He swung a gold-headed switch, and was followed by a little
terrier dog of a breed new to Broadway.
Mr. Pompilard’s complexion was somewhat florid, and presented few marks
of age. He wore his own teeth, which were still sound and white, and his
own hair, including whiskers, although the hue was rather too black to
be natural.
“I believe I have the honor of addressing Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard,
with the air of one who is graciously bestowing a condescension.
“That’s my name, sir. What’s your business?” replied Charlton, in the
curt, dry manner of one who gives his information grudgingly.
“My name, sir, is Pompilard. You may not be aware that there is a sort
of family connection between us.”
“Ah! yes; I remember,” said Charlton, looking inquiringly at his
visitor, but not asking him to sit down.
Pompilard returned his gaze, as if waiting for something; then, seeing
that nothing came, he lifted a chair, replaced it with emphasis on the
floor, and sat down. If it was a rebuke, Charlton did not take it,
though the terrier seemed to comprehend it fully, for he began to bark,
and made a reconnoissance of Charlton’s legs that plainly meant
mischief.
Pompilard refreshed himself for a moment with the lawyer’s alarm, then
ordered Grip to lie down under the table, which he did with a quavering
whine of expostulation.
“I see,” said Pompilard, “you almost forget the precise nature of the
connection to which I allude. Let me explain: the lady who has the honor
to be your wife is the step-mother, I believe, of Mr. Henry Berwick.”
“Both the step-mother and aunt,” interposed Charlton, somewhat mollified
by the language of his visitor.
“Yes, she was half-sister to his own mother,” resumed Pompilard. “Well,
the wife of Mr. Henry Berwick was Miss Aylesford of Chicago, and is the
niece of my present wife.”
“I understand all that,” said Charlton; and then, as the thought
occurred to him that he might make the connection useful, he rose, and,
offering his hand, said, “I am happy to make your acquaintance, Mr.
Pompilard.” That gentleman rose and exchanged salutations; and Grip,
under the table, gave a smothered howl, subsiding into a whine, as if he
felt personally aggrieved by the concession, and would like to put his
teeth in the calf of a certain leg.
“My object in calling,” said Pompilard, “is merely to inquire if you can
give me the present address of Mrs. Henry Berwick. My wife wishes to
communicate with her.”
Charlton generally either evaded a direct question or answered it by a
lie. He never received a request for information, even in regard to the
time of day, that he did not cast about in his mind to see how he could
gain by the withholding or profit by the giving. He took it for granted
that every man was trying to get the advantage of him; and he resolved
to take the initiative in that game. And so, to Pompilard’s inquiry,
Charlton replied:
“I really cannot say whether Mr. Berwick is in the country or not. The
last I heard of him he was in Paris.”
“Then your intelligence of him is not so late as mine. He arrived in
Boston some days since, but left immediately for the West by the way of
Albany. I thought your wife might be in communication with him.”
“They seldom correspond.”
“I must inquire about him at the Union Club,” said Pompilard, musingly.
“By the way, Mr. Charlton, you deal in real estate securities, do you
not?”
“Occasionally. There are some old-fashioned persons who consult me in
regard to investments.”
“Do you want any good mortgages?” asked Pompilard.
“Just at present, money is very scarce and high,” replied Charlton.
“That’s the very reason why I want it,” said his visitor. “Could you
negotiate a thirty thousand dollar mortgage for me?”
“But that’s a very large sum.”
“Another reason why I want it,” returned Pompilard. “Supposing the
security were satisfactory, what bonus should you require for getting me
the money? Please give me your lowest terms, and at once, for I have an
engagement in five minutes on ’Change.”
“Well, sir,” said Charlton, in the tone of a man to whom it is an
ordinary act to drive the knife in deep, “I think in these times five
per cent would be about right.”
“Pooh! I’ll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard, with an
air of unspeakable contempt. “Come, Grip.”
And Mr. Pompilard bowed and turned to leave, just as another knock was
heard at the door. He opened it, encountering four men, one of whom
kicked the unoffending terrier; an indignity which Pompilard resented by
switching the aggressor smartly twice round the legs, and then passed
on. He had not descended five steps when a bullet from a pistol grazed
his whiskers. “Not a bad shot that, my Southern friend!” said the old
man, deliberately continuing his descent.
Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he was desirous
that his wife should communicate with Mrs. Berwick.
Inheriting a fortune from his mother, Albert Pompilard had managed to
squander it in princely expenditures before he was twenty-five years
old. The vulgar dissipations of sensualists he despised. He abstained
from wine and strong drink at a time when to abstain was to be laughed
at. With the costliest viands and liquors on his table for guests, he
himself ate sparingly and drank cold water. Had he been as scrupulously
moral in the management of his soul as he was of his body, he would have
been a saint. But he was a spendthrift and a gambler on a large scale.
Having ruined himself financially, he married. A little money which his
wife brought him was staked entire on a stock operation, and won. Thence
a new fortune larger than the first. At thirty-five he was worth half a
million. He took his wife, two daughters, and a son to Paris, gave
entertainments that made even royalty envious, and in ten years returned
to New York a bankrupt. His wife died, and Pompilard appeared once more
at the stock board. Ill-luck now pursued him with remorseless
pertinacity, but never succeeded in disturbing his equanimity. He was
frightfully in debt, but the consideration never for a moment marred his
digestion nor his slumbers. The complacency of a man contented with
himself and the world shed its beams over his features always.
At fifty, a widower, with three children, he carried off and married
Miss Aylesford, who at the time was on a visit to New York,—a girl of
eighteen, handsome, accomplished, and worth half a million. In vain had
her brother tried to open her eyes to Pompilard’s character as an
inveterate fortune-hunter and spendthrift. The wilful young lady would
have her way. Pompilard took possession, paid his debts with interest,
and, with less than one third of his wife’s property left, once more
tried his fortune in Wall Street. This time he won. At sixty he was
richer than ever. He became the owner of a domain of three hundred acres
on the Hudson,—built palatial residences,—one in the country, and one on
the favored avenue that leads to Murray Hill,—bought a steamboat to
transport his guests to and from the city,—gave a series of _fêtes_, and
kept open houses.
But soon one of those panics in the money-market which take place
periodically to baffle the calculations and paralyze the efforts of
large holders of stocks, occurred to confound Pompilard. In trying to
_hold_ his stocks, he was compelled to make heavy sacrifices, and then,
in trying to _hedge_, he heaped loss on loss. He had to sell his acres
on the Hudson,—then his town house,—finally his horses; and at
sixty-nine we find him trying to get a mortgage for thirty thousand
dollars on five or six poor little houses, the last remnant from the
wreck of his wife’s property. In the hope of effecting this he had
persuaded his wife to communicate with her niece, Mrs. Berwick.
The brother of Mrs. Pompilard, Robert Aylesford, had inherited a large
estate, which he had increased by judicious investments in land on the
site of Chicago, some years before that wonderful city had risen like an
exhalation in a night from the marsh on which it stands. His wife had
died in child-birth, leaving a daughter whom he named after her,
Leonora. His own health was subsequently impaired by a malignant fever,
caught in humane attendance on a Mr. Carteret, a stranger whom he had
accidentally met at Cairo in Southern Illinois.
Deeply chagrined at his sister’s imprudent marriage, and feeling that
his own health was failing, Aylesford conceived a somewhat romantic
project in regard to his only child, Leonora. During a winter he had
passed in Italy he had become acquainted with the Ridgways, a refined
and intelligent family from Western Massachusetts. One of the members, a
lady, kept a boarding-school of deserved celebrity in the town of
Lenbridge.
To this lady Aylesford took his little girl, then only two years old,
and said: “I wish you to bring her up under the name of Leonora
Lockhart, her mother’s maiden name, and her own, though not all of it.
When she is married, let her know that the rest of it is _Aylesford_.
She is so young she will not remember much of her father. Keep both her
and the world in ignorance of the fact that she is born to a fortune. My
wish is that she shall not be the victim of a fortune-hunter in
marriage; and you will take all needful steps to carry out my wish. I
leave you the address of my man of business, Mr. Keep, in New York, who
will supply you with a thousand dollars a year as your compensation for
supporting and educating her. Neither she nor any one else must know
that even this allotment is on her account. My physician orders me to
pass the winter in Cuba, and I may not return. Should that be my lot, I
look to you to be in the place of a parent to my child. Her relations
may suppose her dead. I shall not undeceive them. Her nearest relative
is her aunt, my sister, Mrs. Pompilard, who, in the event of my death,
will be legally satisfied that such a disposition is made of my property
that it cannot directly or indirectly fall into the hands of that
irreclaimable spendthrift, her husband. As I have lived for the last
twenty years at the West, I do not think you will have any difficulty in
keeping my secret.”
Subsequently he said: “On the day of Leonora’s marriage, should she have
passed her eighteenth year, the trustees of my property will have
directions to hand over to her the income. Till that it is done, your
lips must be sealed in regard to her prospects. In the event of her
remaining single, I have made provisions which Mr. Keep will explain to
you. I am resolved that my daughter shall not have to buy a husband.”
Mrs. Ridgway accepted the trust in the same frank spirit in which it was
offered. Mr. Aylesford took leave of his little girl, and before the
next spring she was fatherless. Her eighteenth birthday found her
developed into a young lady of singular grace and beauty, with
accomplishments which showed that the body had not been neglected in
adorning the mind. But the mystery that surrounded her family and origin
produced a shyness that kept her aloof from social intimacies. Vainly
did her attentive friends try to overcome her fondness for solitary
musings and rides. She was possessed with the idea that she was an
illegitimate child, though to this suspicion she never gave utterance
till candor seemed to compel it.
On a charming morning in June, as a young man, just escaped from a
law-office in New York for a week’s recreation among the hills of
Lenbridge, was entering “the cathedral road,” as it was called,
overarched as it was by forest-trees, and spread with an elastic mat of
pine-leaves, he saw a young lady riding a spirited horse, a
bright-colored bay, exquisitely formed, and showing high blood in every
step. The sagacious creature evidently felt the exhilaration of the
fresh, balsamic air, for he played the most amusing antics, dancing and
curvetting as if for the entertainment of a circus of spectators;
starting lightly and feigning fright at little shining puddles of water,
leaping over fallen stumps, but with such elastic ease and precision as
not to stir his rider in her seat,—and frolicking much like a pet kitten
when the ball of yarn is on the floor.
His mistress evidently understood his ways, and he hers, for she talked
to him and patted his glossy neck and seemed to encourage him in his
tricks. At last she said, “Come, now, Hamlet, enough of this,—behave
yourself!” and then he walked on quite demurely. He traversed a
cross-road newly repaired with broken stones, and entered on the forest
avenue. But all at once Hamlet seemed to go lame, and the lady
dismounted, and, lifting one of his fore-feet, tried to extract a stone
that had got locked in the hollow of his sole. Her strength was unequal
to the task. The pedestrian who had been watching her movements
approached, bowed, and offered his assistance. The lady thanked him, and
resigned into his hand the hoof of the gentle animal, who plainly
understood that something for his benefit was going on.
“The stone is wedged in so tightly, I fear it will require a chisel to
pry it out,” said the new acquaintance, whose name was Henry Berwick.
Then, after a pause, he added, “But perhaps I can hammer it out with
another stone.”
“Let me find one for you,” said Leonora, running here and there, and
searching as she held up her riding-habit.
Henry looked after her with an interest he had never felt before for any
one in the form of a young lady. How bewitchingly that black beaver with
its ostrich plumes sat on her head, but failed to hide those luxuriant
curls,—luxuriant by the grace of nature and not of the hair-dresser! And
then that face,—how full of life and tenderness and mind! And how
admirably did its red and white contrast with the surrounding blackness
of its frame! And that figure,—how were its harmonious perfections
brought out by the simple, closely fitting nankeen riding-habit trimmed
with green!
While she was engaged in her search, Mr. Henry Berwick dishonestly did
his best to loosen the shoe. All at once, in the most innocent manner,
he exclaimed, “This shoe is loose,—it has come off,—look here!”
And he held it up, just as Leonora handed him a stone.
He took the stone, and with one blow knocked out the fragment that lay
wedged in the hollow of the sole.
“Thank you, sir,” said Leonora.
“You are one of Mrs. Ridgway’s young ladies, I presume,” said Henry.
“Yes, I shall not be back in time for my music-lesson, if I do not
hurry.”
“There is a blacksmith not a quarter of a mile from here. My advice to
you is to stop and have this shoe refitted. Remember, you have a mile of
a newly macadamized road to travel before you get home, and over that
you will have to walk your horse slowly unless you restore him his
shoe.”
Leonora seemed struck by these considerations. “I will take your
advice,” she said, putting herself in the saddle with a movement so
quick and easy that Berwick could not interpose to help her. But the
horse limped so badly that she once more dismounted.
“Let me lead him for you,” said Berwick, “I shall not have to go a step
out of my way.”
“You are very obliging,” replied the lady.
And the young man led the horse, while the young lady walked by his
side.
The quarter of a mile was a remarkably long one. It was a full hour
before the blacksmith’s shed was reached, and then Berwick, secretly
giving the man of the anvil a dollar, winked at him, and said aloud,
“Call us as soon as you have fitted the shoe”; and then added, in an
_aside_, “Be an hour or so about it.”
The new acquaintances strolled together to a beautiful pond within sight
among the hills.
O that exquisite June morning, with its fresh foliage, its clear sky,
its pine odors, its wild-flowers, and its songs of birds! How
imperishable in the memories of both it became! How much happier were
they ever afterwards for the happiness of that swift-gliding moment!
Leonora spied some harebells in the crevices of the slaty rocks of a
steep declivity, and pointed them out as the first of the season.
“I must get them for you,” cried Berwick.
“No, no! It is a dangerous place,” said Leonora.
“They shall be your harebells,” said Berwick, swinging himself, by the
aid of a birch-tree that grew almost horizontally out of the cleft of a
rock, over the precipice, and snatching the flowers. Leonora treasured
them for years, pressed between the leaves of Shelley’s Poems.
Thus began a courtship which, three weeks afterwards, was followed by an
offer of marriage. Early in the acquaintance, foreseeing the drift of
Berwick’s eager attentions, Leonora had frankly communicated by letter
her suspicions in regard to her own birth.
In his reply Berwick had written: “I almost wish it may be as you
imagine, in order that I may the better prove to you the strength of my
attachment; for I do not underrate the desirableness of an honorable
genealogy. No one can prize more than I an unspotted lineage. But I
would not marry the woman who I did not think could in herself
compensate me for the absence of all advantages of family position and
wealth; and whose society could not more than m—flittedake up for the
loss of all social attractions that could be offered outside of the home
her presence would sanctify. You are the one my heart points to as able
to do all this; and so, Leonora, whether it be the bar sinister or the
ducal coronet that ought to be in your coat of arms, it matters not to
me. No herald’s pen can make you less charming in my eyes. Under any
cloud that could be thrown over your origin, to me you would always be,
as Portia was to Brutus, a fair and honorable wife;—
‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit this sad heart.’
And yet not sad, if you were mine! So do not think that any future
development in regard to the antecedents of yourself or of your parents
can detract from an affection based on those qualities which are of the
soul and heart, and the worth of which no mortal disaster can impair.”
To all which the imprudent young lady returned this answer: “Do not
think to outdo me in generosity. You judge me independently of all
social considerations and advantages; I will do the same by you; for I
know as little of you as you do of me.”
They met the next morning, and Berwick said: “Is not this a very
dangerous precedent we are setting for romantic young people? What if I
should turn out to be a swindler or a bigamist?”
“My heart would have prescience of it much sooner than my head,” replied
Leonora. “Women are not so often misled into uncongenial alliances by
their affections as by their passions or their calculations. The lamb,
before he has ever known a wolf, is instinctively aware of an enemy’s
presence, even while the wolf is yet unseen. If the lamb stopped to
reason with himself, he would be very apt to say, ‘Nonsense! it is no
doubt a very respectable beast who is approaching. Why should I imagine
he wants to harm me?’”
“But what if I am a wolf disguised as a lamb?” asked Berwick.
“I am so good a judge of tune,” replied Leonora, “that I should detect
the sham the moment you tried to cry _baa_. Nay, a repugnant nature
makes itself felt to me by its very presence. There are some persons the
very touch of whose hand produces an impression, I generally find to be
true, of their character.”
“An ingenious plea!” said Berwick with an affectation of sarcasm. “But
it does not palliate your indiscretion.”
“Very well, sir,” replied Leonora, “since you disapprove my
precipitancy, we will—”
Berwick interrupted the speech at the very portal of her mouth, by
surprising its warders, the lips.
And so it was a betrothal.
How admirably had Mrs. Ridgway behaved through it all! How scrupulous
she had been in withholding all intimations of Leonora’s prospective
wealth! There were young men among the Ridgways, handsome, accomplished,
just entering the hard paths of commercial or professional toil. How
easy it would have been to have hinted to some of them, “Secure this
young lady, and your fortune is made. Let a hint suffice.” But Mrs.
Ridgway was too loyal to her trust to even blindly convey by her
demeanor towards Leonora a suspicion that the child was aught more than
the dowerless orphan she appeared.
Berwick took a small house in Brooklyn, and prepared for his marriage.
Clients were as yet few and poor, but he did not shrink from living on
twelve hundred a year with the woman he loved. He was not quite sure
that his betrothed was even rich enough to refurnish her own wardrobe.
So he delicately broached the question to Mrs. Ridgway. That lady
mischievously told him that if he could let Leonora have fifty dollars,
it might be convenient. The next day Berwick sent a check for ten times
that amount.
But after the wedding, an elderly gentleman, named Keep, to whom Berwick
had been introduced a few days before, took him and the bride aside, and
delivered to him a schedule of the title-deeds of an estate worth a
million, the bequest of the bride’s father, and the income of which was
to be subject to her order.
“But this deranges all our little plans!” exclaimed the bride, with
delightful _naïveté_.
“Well, my children, you must put up with it as well as you can,” said
Mr. Keep.
Berwick took the surprise gravely and thoughtfully. With this great
enlargement of his means and opportunities, were not his
responsibilities proportionably increased?