The House of the Seven Gables
the frown which you at once feel to be eternal. Hepzibah almost adopted
the insane belief that it was her old Puritan ancestor, and not the
modern Judge, on whom she had just been wreaking the bitterness of her
heart. Never did a man show stronger proof of the lineage attributed to
him than Judge Pyncheon, at this crisis, by his unmistakable
resemblance to the picture in the inner room.
“Cousin Hepzibah,” said he very calmly, “it is time to have done with
this.”
“With all my heart!” answered she. “Then, why do you persecute us any
longer? Leave poor Clifford and me in peace. Neither of us desires
anything better!”
“It is my purpose to see Clifford before I leave this house,” continued
the Judge. “Do not act like a madwoman, Hepzibah! I am his only friend,
and an all-powerful one. Has it never occurred to you,—are you so blind
as not to have seen,—that, without not merely my consent, but my
efforts, my representations, the exertion of my whole influence,
political, official, personal, Clifford would never have been what you
call free? Did you think his release a triumph over me? Not so, my good
cousin; not so, by any means! The furthest possible from that! No; but
it was the accomplishment of a purpose long entertained on my part. I
set him free!”
“You!” answered Hepzibah. “I never will believe it! He owed his dungeon
to you; his freedom to God’s providence!”
“I set him free!” reaffirmed Judge Pyncheon, with the calmest
composure. “And I came hither now to decide whether he shall retain his
freedom. It will depend upon himself. For this purpose, I must see
him.”
“Never!—it would drive him mad!” exclaimed Hepzibah, but with an
irresoluteness sufficiently perceptible to the keen eye of the Judge;
for, without the slightest faith in his good intentions, she knew not
whether there was most to dread in yielding or resistance. “And why
should you wish to see this wretched, broken man, who retains hardly a
fraction of his intellect, and will hide even that from an eye which
has no love in it?”
“He shall see love enough in mine, if that be all!” said the Judge,
with well-grounded confidence in the benignity of his aspect. “But,
Cousin Hepzibah, you confess a great deal, and very much to the
purpose. Now, listen, and I will frankly explain my reasons for
insisting on this interview. At the death, thirty years since, of our
uncle Jaffrey, it was found,—I know not whether the circumstance ever
attracted much of your attention, among the sadder interests that
clustered round that event,—but it was found that his visible estate,
of every kind, fell far short of any estimate ever made of it. He was
supposed to be immensely rich. Nobody doubted that he stood among the
weightiest men of his day. It was one of his eccentricities,
however,—and not altogether a folly, neither,—to conceal the amount of
his property by making distant and foreign investments, perhaps under
other names than his own, and by various means, familiar enough to
capitalists, but unnecessary here to be specified. By Uncle Jaffrey’s
last will and testament, as you are aware, his entire property was
bequeathed to me, with the single exception of a life interest to
yourself in this old family mansion, and the strip of patrimonial
estate remaining attached to it.”
“And do you seek to deprive us of that?” asked Hepzibah, unable to
restrain her bitter contempt. “Is this your price for ceasing to
persecute poor Clifford?”
“Certainly not, my dear cousin!” answered the Judge, smiling
benevolently. “On the contrary, as you must do me the justice to own, I
have constantly expressed my readiness to double or treble your
resources, whenever you should make up your mind to accept any kindness
of that nature at the hands of your kinsman. No, no! But here lies the
gist of the matter. Of my uncle’s unquestionably great estate, as I
have said, not the half—no, not one third, as I am fully convinced—was
apparent after his death. Now, I have the best possible reasons for
believing that your brother Clifford can give me a clew to the recovery
of the remainder.”
“Clifford!—Clifford know of any hidden wealth? Clifford have it in his
power to make you rich?” cried the old gentlewoman, affected with a
sense of something like ridicule at the idea. “Impossible! You deceive
yourself! It is really a thing to laugh at!”
“It is as certain as that I stand here!” said Judge Pyncheon, striking
his gold-headed cane on the floor, and at the same time stamping his
foot, as if to express his conviction the more forcibly by the whole
emphasis of his substantial person. “Clifford told me so himself!”
“No, no!” exclaimed Hepzibah incredulously. “You are dreaming, Cousin
Jaffrey.”
“I do not belong to the dreaming class of men,” said the Judge quietly.
“Some months before my uncle’s death, Clifford boasted to me of the
possession of the secret of incalculable wealth. His purpose was to
taunt me, and excite my curiosity. I know it well. But, from a pretty
distinct recollection of the particulars of our conversation, I am
thoroughly convinced that there was truth in what he said. Clifford, at
this moment, if he chooses,—and choose he must!—can inform me where to
find the schedule, the documents, the evidences, in whatever shape they
exist, of the vast amount of Uncle Jaffrey’s missing property. He has
the secret. His boast was no idle word. It had a directness, an
emphasis, a particularity, that showed a backbone of solid meaning
within the mystery of his expression.”
“But what could have been Clifford’s object,” asked Hepzibah, “in
concealing it so long?”
“It was one of the bad impulses of our fallen nature,” replied the
Judge, turning up his eyes. “He looked upon me as his enemy. He
considered me as the cause of his overwhelming disgrace, his imminent
peril of death, his irretrievable ruin. There was no great probability,
therefore, of his volunteering information, out of his dungeon, that
should elevate me still higher on the ladder of prosperity. But the
moment has now come when he must give up his secret.”
“And what if he should refuse?” inquired Hepzibah. “Or,—as I
steadfastly believe,—what if he has no knowledge of this wealth?”
“My dear cousin,” said Judge Pyncheon, with a quietude which he had the
power of making more formidable than any violence, “since your
brother’s return, I have taken the precaution (a highly proper one in
the near kinsman and natural guardian of an individual so situated) to
have his deportment and habits constantly and carefully overlooked.
Your neighbors have been eye-witnesses to whatever has passed in the
garden. The butcher, the baker, the fish-monger, some of the customers
of your shop, and many a prying old woman, have told me several of the
secrets of your interior. A still larger circle—I myself, among the
rest—can testify to his extravagances at the arched window. Thousands
beheld him, a week or two ago, on the point of flinging himself thence
into the street. From all this testimony, I am led to
apprehend—reluctantly, and with deep grief—that Clifford’s misfortunes
have so affected his intellect, never very strong, that he cannot
safely remain at large. The alternative, you must be aware,—and its
adoption will depend entirely on the decision which I am now about to
make,—the alternative is his confinement, probably for the remainder of
his life, in a public asylum for persons in his unfortunate state of
mind.”
“You cannot mean it!” shrieked Hepzibah.
“Should my cousin Clifford,” continued Judge Pyncheon, wholly
undisturbed, “from mere malice, and hatred of one whose interests ought
naturally to be dear to him,—a mode of passion that, as often as any
other, indicates mental disease,—should he refuse me the information so
important to myself, and which he assuredly possesses, I shall consider
it the one needed jot of evidence to satisfy my mind of his insanity.
And, once sure of the course pointed out by conscience, you know me too
well, Cousin Hepzibah, to entertain a doubt that I shall pursue it.”
“O Jaffrey,—Cousin Jaffrey,” cried Hepzibah mournfully, not
passionately, “it is you that are diseased in mind, not Clifford! You
have forgotten that a woman was your mother!—that you have had sisters,
brothers, children of your own!—or that there ever was affection
between man and man, or pity from one man to another, in this miserable
world! Else, how could you have dreamed of this? You are not young,
Cousin Jaffrey!—no, nor middle-aged,—but already an old man! The hair
is white upon your head! How many years have you to live? Are you not
rich enough for that little time? Shall you be hungry,—shall you lack
clothes, or a roof to shelter you,—between this point and the grave?
No! but, with the half of what you now possess, you could revel in
costly food and wines, and build a house twice as splendid as you now
inhabit, and make a far greater show to the world,—and yet leave riches
to your only son, to make him bless the hour of your death! Then, why
should you do this cruel, cruel thing?—so mad a thing, that I know not
whether to call it wicked! Alas, Cousin Jaffrey, this hard and grasping
spirit has run in our blood these two hundred years. You are but doing
over again, in another shape, what your ancestor before you did, and
sending down to your posterity the curse inherited from him!”
“Talk sense, Hepzibah, for Heaven’s sake!” exclaimed the Judge, with
the impatience natural to a reasonable man, on hearing anything so
utterly absurd as the above, in a discussion about matters of business.
“I have told you my determination. I am not apt to change. Clifford
must give up his secret, or take the consequences. And let him decide
quickly; for I have several affairs to attend to this morning, and an
important dinner engagement with some political friends.”
“Clifford has no secret!” answered Hepzibah. “And God will not let you
do the thing you meditate!”
“We shall see,” said the unmoved Judge. “Meanwhile, choose whether you
will summon Clifford, and allow this business to be amicably settled by
an interview between two kinsmen, or drive me to harsher measures,
which I should be most happy to feel myself justified in avoiding. The
responsibility is altogether on your part.”
“You are stronger than I,” said Hepzibah, after a brief consideration;
“and you have no pity in your strength! Clifford is not now insane; but
the interview which you insist upon may go far to make him so.
Nevertheless, knowing you as I do, I believe it to be my best course to
allow you to judge for yourself as to the improbability of his
possessing any valuable secret. I will call Clifford. Be merciful in
your dealings with him!—be far more merciful than your heart bids you
be!—for God is looking at you, Jaffrey Pyncheon!”
The Judge followed his cousin from the shop, where the foregoing
conversation had passed, into the parlor, and flung himself heavily
into the great ancestral chair. Many a former Pyncheon had found repose
in its capacious arms: rosy children, after their sports; young men,
dreamy with love; grown men, weary with cares; old men, burdened with
winters,—they had mused, and slumbered, and departed to a yet
profounder sleep. It had been a long tradition, though a doubtful one,
that this was the very chair, seated in which the earliest of the
Judge’s New England forefathers—he whose picture still hung upon the
wall—had given a dead man’s silent and stern reception to the throng of
distinguished guests. From that hour of evil omen until the present, it
may be,—though we know not the secret of his heart,—but it may be that
no wearier and sadder man had ever sunk into the chair than this same
Judge Pyncheon, whom we have just beheld so immitigably hard and