I did not know of the contemplated visit of Mr. Edgerton to my worthy uncle, nor of its purpose, or I should, most a.s.suredly, have put my veto upon the measure with all the tenacity of a resentful spirit; but this gentleman, who was a man of nice sensibility as well as strong good sense, readily comprehended a portion of my secret history from what was known to him. He easily conceived that my uncle was somewhat of a n.i.g.g.ard from the manner in which I had employed myself during my preparation for the bar. He thought, however, that my uncle, though unwilling to expend money in the prosecution of a scheme which he did not approve--now that the scheme was so far successful as to afford every promise of a reasonable harvest, could not do less than come forward to the a.s.sistance of one who had shown such a determined disposition to a.s.sist himself.
He was mistaken. He little knew the man. His interview with my uncle was a short one. The parties were already acquainted, though not intimately.
They knew each other as persons of standing in the same community, and this made the opening of Mr. Edgerton"s business easy. I state the tenor of the interview as it came to my knowledge afterward.
"Mr. Clifford," he said, "you have a nephew--a young gentleman, who has been recently admitted to the bar--Mr. Edward Clifford."
The reply, with a look of wonder was necessarily affirmative.
"I have had much pleasure," continued the other, "in knowing him for some time. He is an intimate of my eldest son, and from what has met my eyes, sir, I should say, you are fortunate in having a nephew of so much promise."
"Why, yes, sir, I believe he is a clever youth enough," was the costive answer.
"He is more than that, sir. I regard him, indeed, as a most astonishing young man. The very manner in which he has pursued his studies while engaged in the hara.s.sing labors of a large wholesale business house of this city--alone establishes this fact."
The cheeks of my uncle reddened. The last sentence of Mr. Edgerton was unfortunate for his object. It conveyed a tacit reproof, which the n.i.g.g.ardly conscience of Mr. Clifford readily appropriated and, perhaps, antic.i.p.ated. He dreaded lest Mr. Edgerton knew all.
"You are probably aware, Mr. Edgcrton," he replied with equal hesitancy and haste--"you have heard that Edward Clifford is an orphan--that he has nothing, and it was therefore necessary that he should learn to employ himself; though it was against my wish, sir, that he went into a mercantile house."
There was something suppressed in this--a mean evasion--for he could not easily have told Mr. Edgcrton, without a blush, that, instead of the mercantile establishment, he would have made me a bricklayer"s hodman.
But this, it seems, Edgerton had found out for himself. His reply, however, was calculated to soothe the jealous apprehensions of Mr.
Clifford. He had an object in view, which he thought too important to risk for the small pleasure of a pa.s.sing sarcasm.
"Perhaps, it has happened for the best, Mr. Clifford. You were right in requiring the young man to do for himself. Were I worth millions, sir, I should still prefer that my son should learn that lesson--that he should work out his own deliverance with the sweat of his own brow."
"I agree with you, sir, perfectly," replied the other, with increased complacency. "A boy learns to value his money as he should, only when he has earned it for himself."
"Ah! it is not for this object simply," replied Mr. Edgerton, "that I would have him acquire habits of industry; it is for the moral results which such habits produce--the firmness, character, consistency--the strength and independence--temperance, justice--all of which arise, and almost only, from obedience to this law. But it is clear that one can not do everything by himself, and this young man, though he has gone on in a manner that might shame the best of us, is still not so thoroughly independent as he fancies himself. It will be some time before he will be able to realize anything from his profession, and he will need some small a.s.sistance in the meantime."
"I can not help him," exclaimed Mr. Clifford, abruptly--"I have not the means to spare. My own family need everything that I can give. He has himself only to blame. He chose his profession for himself. I warned him against it. He needn"t send to me."
"Do not mistake me, Mr. Clifford," said Mr. Edgerton, calmly. "Your nephew knows nothing of my present visit. I would be loath that he should know. It was the singular independence of his mind that led me to the conviction, that he would sooner die than ask a.s.sistance from anybody, that persuaded me to suggest to you in what manner you might afford him an almost necessary help, without offending his sensibility."
"Humph!" exclaimed the other, while a sneer mantled upon his lips. "You are very considerate, Mr. Edgerton; but the same sensibilities might prompt him to reject the a.s.sistance when tendered."
"No, sir," replied Edgerton, mildly--"I think I could manage that."
"I am sorry, sir, that I can not second your wishes in any material respect," was the answer of my uncle;--"but I will see Edward, and let him know that my house is open to him as it was from, the time he was four years old; and he shall have a seat at my table until he can establish himself more to his satisfaction; but money, sir, in truth, I have not a cent to spare. My own necessities--"
"Enough, sir," said Mr. Edgerton, mildly; "I take it for granted, Mr.
Clifford, that if you could contribute to the success of your brother"s son, you certainly would neither refuse nor refrain to do so."
"Oh, surely--certainly not," replied the other, hastily. "Anything that I could do--anything in reason, sir, I should be very happy to do, but--"
And then followed the usual rigmarole about "his own family," and "hard times," and "diminished resources," and all those stereotype commonplaces which are for ever on the lips of stereotype insincere people. Mr. Clifford did not perceive the dry and somewhat scornful innuendo, which lay at the bottom of Mr. Edgerton"s seemingly innocent a.s.sumption; and the latter took his leave, vexed with himself at having made the unsuccessful application--but still more angry with the meanness of character which he had encountered in my uncle.
CHAPTER IV.
"She still soothed The mock of others."
It is not improbable that, after a few hours given to calm reflection, my uncle perceived how obnoxious he might be made to public censure for his narrow treatment of my claims; and the next day he sent for me in order to tender me the freedom of his house--a tender which he had made the day before to Mr. Edgerton in my behalf. But his offer had been already antic.i.p.ated by that excellent friend that very day. Coming warm and fresh from his interview with my uncle, he called upon me, and in a very plain, direct, business-like, but yet kind and considerate manner, informed me that he stood very much in need of an a.s.sistant who would prepare his papers--did me the honor to say that he fancied I would suit him better than anybody else he knew, and offered me six hundred dollars for my labors in that capacity for the first year of my service. My engagement to him, he said at the same time, did not imply such entire employment as would incapacitate me for the execution of any business which might be intrusted to my hands individually. I was permitted the use of a desk in his office, and was also permitted to hang out my own banner from his window I readily persuaded myself that I could be of service to Mr. Edgerton--such service as would, perhaps, leave my obligation a light one--and promptly acceded to his offer. He had scarcely departed when a servant brought a note from Mr. Clifford. Even while meditating what he fancied was a favor, he could not forbear the usual sneer. The following was his communication:
"DEAR EDWARD: If you can spare a moment from your numerous clients, and are not in a great hurry to make your deposites, you will suffer me to see you at the office before two o"clock. Yours affectionately, J. B.
CLIFFORD."
"Very affectionately!"! exclaimed. It might be nothing more than a pleasantry which he intended by the offensive pa.s.sages in his note; but the whole tenor of his character and conduct forbade this conviction.
"No! no!" I muttered to myself, as the doubt suggested itself to my mind; "no! no! it is the old insolence--the insolence of pride, of conscious wealth--of power, as he thinks, to crush! But he is mistaken.
He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms and that sneer which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks to me, and I will answer him, for the first time, by a narration which shall sting him to the very soul, if he has one!"
This resolution was scarcely made when the image of Julia Clifford--the sweet child--a child now no longer-the sweet woman--interposed, and my temper was subdued of its resolve, though its bitterness remained unqualified.
And what of Julia Clifford? I have said but little of her for some time past, but she has not been forgotten. Far from it. She was still sufficiently the attraction that drew me to the dwelling of my selfish uncle. In the three years that I had been at the mercantile establishment, her progress, in mind and person, had been equally ravishing and rapid. She was no more the child, but the blooming girl--the delicate blossom swelling to the bud--the bud bursting into the flower--but the bloom, and the beauty, and the innocence--the rich tenderness, and the dewy sweet, still remained the same through all the stages of her progress from the infant to the woman. Wealth, and the arrogant example of those about her, had failed to change the naturally true and pure simplicity of her character. She was not to be beguiled by the one, nor misguided by the other, from the exquisite heart which was still worthy of Eden. When I was admitted to the bar at twenty-one, she was sixteen--the age in our southern country when a maiden looks her loveliest. But I had scarcely felt the changes in the last three years which had been going on in her. I beheld beauties added to beauties, charms to charms; and she seemed every day to be the possessor of fresh graces newly dropped from heaven; but there was no change. Increased perfection does not imply change, nor does it suffer it.
It was my custom, as the condescending wish of my uncle expressed, that I should take my Sunday dinner with his family. I complied with this request, and it was no hard matter to do so. But it was a sense of delight, not of duty, that made me comply; and, but for Julia, I feel certain that I should never have darkened the doors, which opened to admit me only through a sense of duty. But the attraction--scarcely known to myself--drew me with singular punctuality; and I a.s.sociated the privilege which had been accorded me with another. I escorted the ladies to church; sometimes, too, when the business of my employers permitted, I spent an evening during the week with the family; and beholding Julia I was not over-anxious to perceive the indifference with which I was treated by all others.
But let me retrace my steps. I subdued my choler so far as to go, with a tolerable appearance of calmness if not humility, to the interview which my uncle had been pleased to solicit. I need not repeat in detail what pa.s.sed between us. It amounted simply to a supercilious offer, on his part, of lodging and board, until I should be sufficiently independent to open the oyster for myself. I thanked him with respect and civility, but, to his surprise, declined to accept his offer.
"Why, what do you propose to do?" he demanded.
"Do what I have been doing for the three past years; work for myself, and pay my board from the proceeds of my own labor."
"What, you go back to the merchants, do you? You are wiser than I thought. The law would not give you your bread here for twenty years in this city."
"You are mistaken, uncle," I said, good humoredly--"it is from the law that I propose to get my bread."
"Indeed!--You are even more sanguine than I thought you. But, pray, upon what do you base your expectations?--the talents, I suppose."
I felt the rankling of this well-known and offensive sneer, but replied simply to the point:--
"No, sir, upon a.s.surances which you will probably think far more worthy of respect. I have already been employed by Mr. Edgerton as an attorney, at a salary of six hundred dollars."
"Ah, indeed! Well, you are a fortunate fellow, I must say, to get such a helping hand at the outset. But you may want some small amount to begin with--you can not draw upon Mr. Edgerton before services are rendered, and if fifty or a hundred dollars, Edward--"
"I thank you, sir;--so far from wanting money, I should be almost able to lend some. I have saved some two hundred from my mercantile salary."
I enjoyed the ghastly grin which rose to his features. It was evident that he was not pleased that I should be independent. He had set out with the conviction, when my father died, that my support and education would devolve upon him, and though they did not, yet it was plain enough to me that he was not unwilling that such should be the impression of the community. I had disarmed him entirely by the simplest process, and, mortified at being disappointed, he was disposed to hate the youth who had baffled him. It was the strangest thing in the world that such should be the feeling of any man, and that, too, in reference to so near a relation; but the case is nevertheless true. I saw it in his looks that moment--I felt it in his accents. I KNEW that such was the real feeling in his soul. There are motives which grow from vanities, piques, rivalries, and the miserable ostentations of a small spirit, which act more terribly upon the pa.s.sions of man, than even the desire of gain or the love of woman. The heart of Mr. Clifford, was, after its particular fashion, a blind heart, like my own.
"Well, I am glad you are so well off. You will dine with us on Sunday, I suppose?"
My affirmative was a matter of course; and, on Sunday, the evident gratification of Julia when she saw me, amply atoned for all her father"s asperities and injustice. She had heard of my success--and though in a sneer from the lips of her father it was not the less productive of an evident delight to her. She met me with the expression of this delight upon all her features.
"I am so glad, so very glad, and so surprised, too, Cousin Edward, at your success. And yet you kept it all to yourself. You might have told ME, at least, that you were studying law. Why was it that I was never allowed to know of your intention?"
"Your father knew it, Julia."
"Yes, so he says now. He says you told him something about it when you first went into a store; but he did not think you in earnest."