Afloat and Ashore (66 page)

Freights were not offering freely at Leghorn, when the Dawn
arrived. After waiting a fortnight, however, I began to take in for
America, and on American account. In the meantime, the cargo coming to
hand slowly, I left Marble to receive it, and proceeded on a little
excursion in Tuscany, or Etruria, as that part of the world was then
called. I visited Pisa, Lucca, Florence, and several other
intermediate towns. At Florence, I passed a week looking at sights,
and amusing myself the best way I could. The gallery and the churches
kept me pretty busy, and the reader will judge of my surprise one day,
at hearing my own name uttered on a pretty high key, by a female
voice, in the Duomo, or Cathedral of the place. On turning, I found
myself in the presence of the Brighams! I was overwhelmed with
questions in a minute. Where had I been? Where was Talcott? Where was
the ship? When did I sail, and whither did I sail? After this came the
communications.
They
had been to Paris; had seen the French
Consul, and had dined with Mr. R. N. Livingston, then negotiating the
treaty of Louisiana; had seen the Louvre; had been to Geneva; had seen
the Lake; had seen Mont Blanc; had crossed Mont Cenis; had been at
Milan; Rome; had seen the Pope; Naples; had seen Vesuvius; had been at
Paestum; had come back to Florence, and
nous voici!
Glad enough
was I, when I got them fairly within the gates of the City of the
Lily. Next came America; from which part of the world they received
such delightful letters! One from Mrs. Jonathan Little, a Salem lady
then residing in New York, had just reached them. It contained four
sheets, and was full of
news.
Then commenced the details; and I
was compelled to listen to a string of gossip that connected nearly
all the people of mark, my informants had ever heard of in the great
Commercial
Emporium that was to be. How suitable is this name!
Emporium would not have been sufficiently distinctive for a town in
which "the merchants" are all in all; in which they must have the
post-office; in which they support the nation by paying all the
revenue; in which the sun must shine and the dew fall to suit their
wants; and in which the winds, themselves, may be recreant to their
duty, when they happen to be foul! Like the Holy Catholic Protestant
Episcopal Church, Trading Commercial Trafficking Emporium should have
been the style of such a place; and I hope, ere long, some of the
"Manor Born" genii of that great town, will see the matter rectified.

"By the way, Captain Wallingford," cut in Jane, at one of Sarah's
breathing intervals, that reminded me strongly of the colloquial
Frenchman's "
s'il crache il est perdu,
" "You know something of
poor Mrs. Bradfort, I believe?"

I assented by a bow.

"It was just as we told you," cried Sarah, taking her revenge. "The
poor woman is dead! and, no doubt, of that cancer. What a frightful
disease! and how accurate has our information been, in all that
affair!"

"I think her will the most extraordinary of all," added Mr. Brigham,
who, as a man, kept an eye more to the main chance. "I suppose you
have heard all about her will, Captain Wallingford?"

I reminded the gentleman that this was the first I had ever heard of
the lady's death.

"She has left every dollar to young Mr. Hardinge, her cousin's son;"
added Jane, "cutting off that handsome, genteel, young lady his
sister, as well as her father, without a cent"—in 1803, they just
began to speak of
cents
, instead of farthings—"and everybody
says it was so cruel!"

"That is not the worst of it," put in Sarah. "They
do
say, Miss
Merton, the English lady that made so much noise in New York—let me
see, Mr. Brigham, what Earl's grand-daughter did we hear she was?—"

This was a most injudicious question, as it gave the husband an
opportunity to take the word out of her mouth.

"Lord Cumberland's, I believe, or some such person—but, no matter
whose. It is quite certain, General Merton, her father, consents to
let her marry young Mr. Hardinge, now Mrs. Bradfort's will is known;
and, as for the sister, he declares he will never give her a dollar."

"He will have sixteen thousand dollars a year," said Jane, with
emphasis.

"Six, my dear, six"—returned the brother, who had reasonably accurate
notions touching dollars and cents, or he never would have been
travelling in Italy; "six thousand dollars a year, was just
Mrs. Bradfort's income, as my old school-fellow Upham told me, and
there isn't another man in York, who can tell fortunes as true as
himself. He makes a business of it, and don't fail one time in
twenty."

"And is it quite certain that Mr. Rupert Hardinge gets all the fortune
of Mrs. Bradfort?" I asked, with a strong effort to seem composed.

"Not the least doubt of it, in the world. Everybody is talking about
it; and there cannot well be a mistake, you know, as it was thought
the sister would be an heiress, and people generally take care to be
pretty certain about that class. But, of course, a young man with that
fortune will be snapped up, as a swallow catches a fly. I've bet Sarah
a pair of gloves we hear of his marriage in three months."

The Brighams talked an hour longer, and made me promise to visit them
at their hotel, a place I could not succeed in finding. That evening,
I left Florence for Leghorn, writing a note of apology, in order not
to be rude. Of course, I did not believe half these people had told
me; but a part, I made no doubt, was true. Mrs. Bradfort was dead, out
of all question; and I thought it possible she might not so far have
learned to distinguish between the merit of Lucy, and that of Rupert,
to leave her entire fortune to the last. As for the declaration of the
brother that he would give his sister nothing, that seemed to me to be
rather strong for even Rupert. I knew the dear girl too well, and was
certain she would not repine; and I was burning with the desire to be
in the field, now she was again penniless.

What a change was this! Here were the Hardinges, those whom I had
known as poor almost as dependants on my own family, suddenly
enriched. I knew Mrs. Bradfort had a large six thousand a year,
besides her own dwelling-house, which stood in Wall Street, a part of
the commercial emporium that was just beginning to be the focus of
banking, and all other monied operations, and which even then promised
to become a fortune of itself. It is true, that old Daniel M'Cormick
still held his levees on his venerable stoop, where all the heavy men
in town used to congregate, and joke, and buy and sell, and abuse
Boney; and that the Winthrops, the Wilkeses, the Jaunceys, the
Verplancks, the Whites, the Ludlows, and other families of mark, then
had their town residences in this well-known street; but coming events
were beginning "to cast their shadows before," and it was easy to
foresee that this single dwelling might at least double Rupert's
income, under the rapid increase of the country and the town. Though
Lucy was still poor, Rupert was now rich.

If family connection, that all-important and magical influence, could
make so broad a distinction between us, while I was comparatively
wealthy, and Lucy had nothing, what, to regard the worst side of the
picture, might I not expect from it, when the golden scale
preponderated on her side. That Andrew Drewett would still marry her,
I began to fear again. Well, why not? I had never mentioned love to
the sweet girl, fondly, ardently as I was attached to her; and what
reason had I for supposing that one in her situation could reserve her
affections for a truant sailor? I am afraid I was unjust enough to
regret that this piece of good fortune should have befallen Rupert. He
must do something for his sister, and every dollar seemed to raise a
new barrier between us.

From that hour, I was all impatience to get home. Had not the freight
been engaged, I think I should have sailed in ballast. By urging the
merchants, however, we got to sea May 15th, with a full cargo, a
portion of which I had purchased on my own account, with the money
earned by the ship, within the last ten months. Nothing occurred
worthy of notice, until the Dawn neared the Straits of Gibraltar.
Here we were boarded by an English frigate, and first learned the
declaration of a new war between France and England; a contest that,
in the end, involved in it all the rest of christendom. Hostilities
had already commenced, the First Consul having thrown aside the mask,
just three days after we left port. The frigate treated us well, it
being too soon for the abuses that followed, and we got through the
pass without further molestation.

As soon as in the Atlantic, I took care to avoid everything we saw,
and nothing got near us, until we had actually made the Highlands of
Navesink. An English sloop-of-war, however, had stood into the angles
of the coast, formed by Long Island and the Jersey shore, giving us a
race for the Hook. I did not know whether I ought to be afraid of this
cruiser, or not, but my mind was made up, not to be boarded if it
could be helped. We succeeded in passing ahead, and entered the Hook,
while he was still a mile outside of the bar. I got a pilot on the
bar, as was then very usual, and stood up towards the town with
studding-sails set, it being just a twelvemoth, almost to an hour,
from the day when I passed up the bay in the Crisis. The pilot took
the ship in near Coenties slip, Marble's favourite berth, and we had
her secured, and her sails unbent before the sun set.

"With look like patient Job's, eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That ere clinched fingers in a captive's hair."
HALLECK.

There was about an hour of daylight, when I left the compting-house of
the consignees, and pursued my way up Wall Street to Broadway. I was
on my way to the City Hotel, then, as now, one of the best inns of the
town. On Trinity Church walk, just as I quitted the Wall Street
crossing, whom should I come plump upon in turning, but Rupert
Hardinge? He was walking down the street in some little haste, and was
evidently much surprised, perhaps I might say startled, at seeing
me. Nevertheless, Rupert was not easily disconcerted, and his manner
at once became warm, if not entirely free from embarrassment. He was
in deep mourning; though otherwise dressed in the height of the
fashion.

"Wallingford!" he exclaimed—it was the first time he did not call me
"Miles,"—"Wallingford! my fine fellow, what cloud did you drop
from?—We have had so many reports concerning you, that your
appearance is as much a matter of surprise, as would be that of
Bonaparte, himself. Of course, your ship is in?"

"Of course," I answered, taking his offered hand; "you know I am
wedded to her, for better, for worse, until death or shipwreck doth us
part."

"Ay, so I've always told the ladies—'there is no other matrimony in
Wallingford,' I've said often, 'than that which will make him a ship's
husband.' But you look confoundedly well—the sea agrees with you,
famously."

"I make no complaint of my health—but tell me of that of our friends
and families? Your father—"

"Is up at Clawbonny, just now—you know how it is with him. No change
of circumstances will ever make him regard his little smoke-house
looking church, as anything but a cathedral, and his parish as a
diocese. Since the great change in our circumstances, all this is
useless, and I often
think
—you know one wouldn't like to
say
as
much to
him
—but I often
think
, he might just as well give up
preaching, altogether."

"Well, this is good, so far—now for the rest of you, all. You meet
my impatience too coldly."

"Yes, you
were
always an impatient fellow. Why, I suppose you
need hardly be told that I have been admitted to the bar."

"That I can very well imagine—you must have found your sea-training
of great service on the examination."

"Ah! my dear Wallingford—what a simpleton I was! But one is so apt
to take up strange conceits in boyhood, that he is compelled to look
back at them in wonder, in after life. But, which way are you
walking?"—slipping an arm in mine—"if up, I'll take a short turn
with you. There's scarce a soul in town, at this season; but you'll
see prodigiously fine girls in Broadway, at this hour, notwithstanding
—those that belong to the other sets, you know; those that belong to
families that can't get into the country among the leaves. Yes, as I
was saying, one scarce knows himself, after twenty. Now, I can hardly
recall a taste, or an inclination, that I cherished in my teens, that
has not flown to the winds. Nothing is permanent in boyhood—we grow
in our persons, and our minds, sentiments, affections, views, hopes,
wishes, and ambition; all take new directions."

"This is not very flattering, Rupert, to one whose acquaintance with
you may be said to be altogether boyish."

"Oh! of course I don't mean
that.
Habit keeps all right in such
matters; and I dare say I shall always be as much attached to you, as
I was in childhood. Still, we are on diverging lines, now, and cannot
for ever remain boys."

"You have told me nothing of the rest," I said, half choked, in my
eagerness to hear of the girls, and yet unaccountably afraid to ask. I
believe I dreaded to hear that Lucy was married. "How, and where is
Grace?"

"Oh! Grace!—yes, I forgot her, to my shame, as you would naturally
wish to inquire. Why, my dear
Captain,
to be as frank as one
ought with so old an acquaintance, your sister is not in a good way,
I'm much afraid; though I've not seen her in an age. She was down
among us in the autumn, but left town for the holidays, for them she
insisted on keeping at Clawbonny, where she said the family had always
kept them, and away she went. Since then, she has not returned, but I
fear she is far from well. You know what a fragile creature Grace ever
has been—so American!—Ah! Wallingford! our females have no
constitutions—charming as angels, delicate as fairies, and all that;
but not to be compared to the English women in constitutions."