Hepzibah had little hardihood for her own proper pain, and far less for
what she must inflict on Clifford. Of so slight a nature, and so
shattered by his previous calamities, it could not well be short of
utter ruin to bring him face to face with the hard, relentless man who
had been his evil destiny through life. Even had there been no bitter
recollections, nor any hostile interest now at stake between them, the
mere natural repugnance of the more sensitive system to the massive,
weighty, and unimpressible one, must, in itself, have been disastrous
to the former. It would be like flinging a porcelain vase, with
already a crack in it, against a granite column. Never before had
Hepzibah so adequately estimated the powerful character of her cousin
Jaffrey,--powerful by intellect, energy of will, the long habit of
acting among men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous pursuit of
selfish ends through evil means. It did but increase the difficulty
that Judge Pyncheon was under a delusion as to the secret which he
supposed Clifford to possess. Men of his strength of purpose and
customary sagacity, if they chance to adopt a mistaken opinion in
practical matters, so wedge it and fasten it among things known to be
true, that to wrench it out of their minds is hardly less difficult
than pulling up an oak. Thus, as the Judge required an impossibility
of Clifford, the latter, as he could not perform it, must needs perish.
For what, in the grasp of a man like this, was to become of Clifford's
soft poetic nature, that never should have had a task more stubborn
than to set a life of beautiful enjoyment to the flow and rhythm of
musical cadences! Indeed, what had become of it already? Broken!
Blighted! All but annihilated! Soon to be wholly so!
For a moment, the thought crossed Hepzibah's mind, whether Clifford
might not really have such knowledge of their deceased uncle's vanished
estate as the Judge imputed to him. She remembered some vague
intimations, on her brother's part, which--if the supposition were not
essentially preposterous--might have been so interpreted. There had
been schemes of travel and residence abroad, day-dreams of brilliant
life at home, and splendid castles in the air, which it would have
required boundless wealth to build and realize. Had this wealth been
in her power, how gladly would Hepzibah have bestowed it all upon her
iron-hearted kinsman, to buy for Clifford the freedom and seclusion of
the desolate old house! But she believed that her brother's schemes
were as destitute of actual substance and purpose as a child's pictures
of its future life, while sitting in a little chair by its mother's
knee. Clifford had none but shadowy gold at his command; and it was
not the stuff to satisfy Judge Pyncheon!