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And, therefore, since wehave been unfortunate enough to introduce our heroine at so inauspicious ajuncture, we would entreat for a mood of due solemnity in the spectators of herfate. But now, though the shop-window was still closely curtained from the publicgaze, a remarkable change had taken place in its interior. The rich and heavyfestoons of cobweb, which it had cost a long ancestral succession of spiderstheir life’s labor to spin and weave, had been carefully brushed awayfrom the ceiling. The counter, shelves, and floor had all been scoured, and thelatter was overstrewn with fresh blue sand. The brown scales, too, hadevidently undergone rigid discipline, in an unavailing effort to rub off therust, which, alas!
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Yet, late asit now was, there still arose a pleasant hum out of one or two of thesquash-blossoms, in the depths of which these bees were plying their goldenlabor. There was one other object in the garden which Nature might fairly claimas her inalienable property, in spite of whatever man could do to render it hisown. This was a fountain, set round with a rim of old mossy stones, and paved,in its bed, with what appeared to be a sort of mosaic-work of variously coloredpebbles.
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Poles and Yankees at the House of Seven Gables (U.S - National Park Service
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"Holgrave" spreads rumors about town that Clifford has been poring over old documents, has found a secret stairway in the house, and is tearing up the Pyncheon home in search of the long-lost treasure. Jaffrey has invested money from wealthy abolitionists in risky investments involving the slave trade. Realizing he might be able to seize control of the house, Jaffrey uses these rumors to accuse Clifford of insanity. Jaffrey visits the house, and hears banging – which he assumes is Clifford searching for the gold.
The Arched Window
The inutility of herbest efforts, however, palsied the poor old gentlewoman. She could do littleelse than sit silently in a corner of the room, when the wet pear-treebranches, sweeping across the small windows, created a noonday dusk, whichHepzibah unconsciously darkened with her woe-begone aspect. Everything—even the old chairs and tables, that hadknown what weather was for three or four such lifetimes as her own—lookedas damp and chill as if the present were their worst experience. The house itself shivered, from everyattic of its seven gables down to the great kitchen fireplace, which served allthe better as an emblem of the mansion’s heart, because, though built forwarmth, it was now so comfortless and empty. But Hepzibah could not rid herself of the sense of something unprecedented atthat instant passing and soon to be accomplished.
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Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and Phœbe took the wings of themorning, and was soon flitting almost as rapidly away as if endowed with theaerial locomotion of the angels to whom Uncle Venner had so graciously comparedher. On the second morning thereafter, Phœbe might have been seen, in her strawbonnet, with a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag on the other, biddingadieu to Hepzibah and Cousin Clifford. She was to take a seat in the next trainof cars, which would transport her to within half a dozen miles of her countryvillage. ” inquired the artist, lookingearnestly at the girl through the twilight.
The Pyncheon of To-day
The matter is disagreeably delicate to handle; but, since thereader must needs be let into the secret, he will please to understand, that,about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found himself involved inserious financial difficulties. The fellow (gentleman, as he styled himself)can hardly have been other than a spurious interloper; for, instead of seekingoffice from the king or the royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim toEastern lands, he bethought himself of no better avenue to wealth than bycutting a shop-door through the side of his ancestral residence. It was thecustom of the time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods and transactbusiness in their own dwellings.
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The medical opinionwith regard to his own recent and regretted decease had almost entirelyobviated the idea that a murder was committed in the former case. Yet, as therecord showed, there were circumstances irrefragably indicating that someperson had gained access to old Jaffrey Pyncheon’s private apartments, ator near the moment of his death. Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on a cloak,—a garment of longago,—in which he had constantly muffled himself during these days ofeasterly storm. He beckoned with his hand, and intimated, so far as she couldcomprehend him, his purpose that they should go together from the house. Thereare chaotic, blind, or drunken moments, in the lives of persons who lack realforce of character,—moments of test, in which courage would most assertitself,—but where these individuals, if left to themselves, staggeraimlessly along, or follow implicitly whatever guidance may befall them, evenif it be a child’s.
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It seemed as if the whole fortune or failure of her shop mightdepend on the display of a different set of articles, or substituting a fairerapple for one which appeared to be specked. So she made the change, andstraightway fancied that everything was spoiled by it; not recognizing that itwas the nervousness of the juncture, and her own native squeamishness as an oldmaid, that wrought all the seeming mischief. She at length withdrew her eyes from the darkcountenance of the Colonel’s portrait, heaved a sigh,—indeed, herbreast was a very cave of Aolus that morning,—and stept across the roomon tiptoe, as is the customary gait of elderly women. Passing through anintervening passage, she opened a door that communicated with the shop, justnow so elaborately described. Owing to the projection of the upperstory—and still more to the thick shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, which stoodalmost directly in front of the gable—the twilight, here, was still asmuch akin to night as morning. After amoment’s pause on the threshold, peering towards the window with hernear-sighted scowl, as if frowning down some bitter enemy, she suddenlyprojected herself into the shop.
Clifford’s Chamber
A large portion of them, as the girlafterwards discovered, had blight or mildew at their hearts; but, viewed at afair distance, the whole rosebush looked as if it had been brought from Edenthat very summer, together with the mould in which it grew. The truth was,nevertheless, that it had been planted by Alice Pyncheon,—she wasPhœbe’s great-great-grand-aunt,—in soil which, reckoning only itscultivation as a garden-plat, was now unctuous with nearly two hundred years ofvegetable decay. Growing as they did, however, out of the old earth, theflowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to their Creator; nor could ithave been the less pure and acceptable because Phœbe’s young breathmingled with it, as the fragrance floated past the window. Hastening down thecreaking and carpetless staircase, she found her way into the garden, gatheredsome of the most perfect of the roses, and brought them to her chamber.
In 1841, Clifford is given a new cellmate, who identifies himself as Matthew Maule (Dick Foran). Maule is shortly released, and takes the name "Holgrave." An abolitionist, he rents a room from Hepzibah Pyncheon. Shortly thereafter, a distant cousin dies and Hepzibah takes in the cousin's daughter, Phoebe Pyncheon (Nan Grey). Desperate for money, Hepzibah opens a small shop in a room of her home. With the beautiful, vivacious Phoebe running the shop, it is a success and earns her much money.
”—and over the whole city the bellsscattered the blessed sounds, now slowly, now with livelier joy, now one bellalone, now all the bells together, crying earnestly,—“It is theSabbath! ”—and flinging their accents afar off, to melt into the airand pervade it with the holy word. The air with God’s sweetest andtenderest sunshine in it, was meet for mankind to breathe into their hearts,and send it forth again as the utterance of prayer. He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches nowadays.And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those old square-toppedchaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that used to be drawn by aplough-horse, and driven by a farmer’s wife and daughter, peddlingwhortle-berries and blackberries about the town. Their disappearance made himdoubt, he said, whether the berries had not left off growing in the broadpastures and along the shady country lanes.
It is the ticking of theJudge’s watch, which, ever since Hepzibah left the room in search ofClifford, he has been holding in his hand. Be the cause what it may, thislittle, quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time’s pulse, repeating its smallstrokes with such busy regularity, in Judge Pyncheon’s motionless hand,has an effect of terror, which we do not find in any other accompaniment of thescene. And, in accordance with his words, he began to laugh, still pointing his fingerat the object, invisible to Hepzibah, within the parlor. She thrust herself past Clifford, anddisappeared into the room; but almost immediately returned, with a cry chokingin her throat. Gazing at her brother with an affrighted glance of inquiry, shebeheld him all in a tremor and a quake, from head to foot, while, amid thesecommoted elements of passion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth.
He has not stirredhand or foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as a hair’s-breadth fromtheir fixed gaze towards the corner of the room, since the footsteps ofHepzibah and Clifford creaked along the passage, and the outer door was closedcautiously behind their exit. He holds his watch in his left hand, but clutchedin such a manner that you cannot see the dial-plate. Or, supposing him asleep, how infantile a quietude of conscience,and what wholesome order in the gastric region, are betokened by slumber soentirely undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk,trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, or any slightest irregularity ofbreath! You must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself whether he breathesat all. Takingadvantage of the brief pause, Clifford left the car, and drew Hepzibah alongwith him. A moment afterwards, the train—with all the life of itsinterior, amid which Clifford had made himself so conspicuous anobject—was gliding away in the distance, and rapidly lessening to a pointwhich, in another moment, vanished.
Had it been a sunny and cheerful day, they couldhardly have gone through the streets without making themselves obnoxious toremark. Now, probably, they were felt to be in keeping with the dismal andbitter weather, and therefore did not stand out in strong relief, as if the sunwere shining on them, but melted into the gray gloom and were forgotten as soonas gone. By this time the sun had gone down, and was tinting the clouds towards thezenith with those bright hues which are not seen there until some time aftersunset, and when the horizon has quite lost its richer brilliancy.
It was impossible toforetell in what exquisite verse the awakening spell might lurk; but, onraising her eyes from the page to Clifford’s face, Phœbe would be madeaware, by the light breaking through it, that a more delicate intelligence thanher own had caught a lambent flame from what she read. One glow of this kind,however, was often the precursor of gloom for many hours afterward; because,when the glow left him, he seemed conscious of a missing sense and power, andgroped about for them, as if a blind man should go seeking his lost eyesight. For the instant, it appeared doubtful whether it were not the Judge’sresolute purpose to set Hepzibah aside, and step across the threshold into theparlor, whence issued that broken and miserable murmur of entreaty. It was notpity that restrained him, for, at the first sound of the enfeebled voice, a redfire kindled in his eyes, and he made a quick pace forward, with somethinginexpressibly fierce and grim darkening forth, as it were, out of the wholeman. After such arevelation, let him smile with what sultriness he would, he could much soonerturn grapes purple, or pumpkins yellow, than melt the iron-branded impressionout of the beholder’s memory.
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