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Charlemont

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Charlemont









CHAPTER XXV.

CONQUEST.





The progress of events and our story necessarily brings as back
to Charlemont. We shall lose sight of William Hinkley, henceforth
Calvert, for some time; and here, par parenthese, let us say to
our readers that this story being drawn from veritable life, will
lack some of that compactness and close fitness of parts which
make our novels too much resemble the course of a common law case.
Instead of having our characters always at hand, at the proper
moment, to do the business of the artist, like so many puppets,
each working on a convenient wire, and waiting to be whistled in
upon the scene, we shall find them sometimes absent, as we do in
real life when their presence is most seriously desired, and when
the reader would perhaps prefer that they should come in, to meet
or make emergencies. Some are gone whom we should rather see; some
present, whose absence, in the language of the Irishman, would be
the best company they could give us; and some, not forthcoming,
like the spirits of Owen Glendower, even when most stoutly called
for. The vast deeps of human progress do not release their tenants
at the beck and call of ordinary magicians, and we, who endeavor
to describe events as we find them, must be content to take them
and persons, too, only when they are willing. Were we writing the
dramatic romance, we should be required to keep William Hinkley
always at hand, as a convenient foil to Alfred Stevens. He should
watch his progress; pursue his sinuosities of course; trace him
out in all his ill-favored purposes, and be ready, at the first
act--having, like the falcon, by frequent and constantly-ascending
gyrations, reached the point of command--to pounce down upon the
fated quarry, and end the story and the strife together. But ours
is a social narrative, where people come and go without much regard
to the unities, and without asking leave of the manager. William
Hinkley, too, is a mere man and no hero. He has no time to spare,
and he is conscious that he has already wasted too much. He has
work to do and is gone to do it. Let it console the reader, in his
absence, to know that he WILL do it--that his promise is a good
one--and that we have already been shown, in the dim perspective
of the future, glimpses of his course which compensate him for his
mishaps, and gladden the heart of his adopted father, by confirming
its prophecies and hopes.

The same fates which deny that he should realize the first fancies
of his boyhood, are, in the end, perhaps, not a jot kinder to others
whom they now rather seem to favor. His absence did not stop the
social machine of Charlemont from travelling on very much as before.
There was a shadow over his mother's heart, and his disappearance
rather aroused some misgiving and self-reproachful sensations in
that of his father. Mr. Calvert, too, had his touch of hypochondria
in consequence of his increased loneliness, and Ned Hinkley's
fighting monomania underwent startling increase; but, with the rest,
the wheel went on without much sensible difference. The truth is,
that, however mortifying the truth may be, the best of us makes but
a very small sensation in his absence. Death is a longer absence,
in which our friends either forget us, or recollect our vices. Our
virtues are best acknowledged when we are standing nigh and ready
to enforce them. Like the argumentative eloquence of the Eighth
Harry, they are never effectual until the halberdiers clinch their
rivets forcibly.

It does not necessarily impugn the benevolence or wisdom of Providence
to show that crime is successful for a season in its purposes. Vice
may prevail, and victims perish, without necessarily disparaging the
career, or impeding the progress of virtue. To show that innocence
may fall, is sometimes to strengthen innocence, so that it may
stand against all assailants. To show vice, even in its moments of
success, is not necessarily to show that such success is desirable.
Far from it! As none of us can look very deeply into the future,
so it happens that the boon for which we pray sometimes turns out
to be our bane; while the hardship and suffering, whose approach
we deprecate in sackcloth and ashes, may come with healing on their
wings, and afford us a dearer blessing than any ever yet depicted
in the loom of a sanguine and brilliant imagination.

We are, after all, humbling as this fact may be to our clamorous
vanity, only so many agents and instruments, blind, and scuffling
vainly in our blindness, in the perpetual law of progress. As a
soul never dies, so it is never useless or unemployed. The Deity
is no more profligate in the matter of souls than he is in that
of seeds. They pass, by periodical transitions, from body to body;
perhaps from sphere to sphere; and as the performance of their trusts
have been praiseworthy or censurable, so will be the character of
their trusts in future. He who has shown himself worthy of confidence
in one state, will probably acquire a corresponding increase of
responsibility in another. He who has betrayed his trusts or impaired
them, will share less of the privileges of the great moral credit
system.

In all these transitions, however, work is to be done. The fact that
there is a trust, implies duty and performance; and the practice
of virtue is nothing more than the performance of this work to the
best of our abilities. Well, we do not do our work. We fail in our
trusts. We abuse tuem. Such a man as Alfred Stevens abuses them.
Such a woman as Margaret Cooper fails in them. What then? Do we
destroy the slave who fails in his duty, or chasten him, and give
him inferior trusts? Do you suppose that the Deity is more profligate
in souls than in seeds--that he creates and sends forth millions
of new souls, annually, in place of those which have gone astray?
Hardly so! He is too good an economist for that. We learn this from
all the analogies. As a soul can not perish, so it never remains
unemployed. It still works, though its labors may be confined to
a treadmill.

The mere novel-reader may regard all this as so much unnecessary
digression. But let him not deceive himself. It would be the most
humiliating and painful thought, indeed, could we believe that the
genius which informs and delights us--which guides the bark of state
through a thousand storms and dangers to its port of safety--which
conquers and commands--which sings in melodies that make melodies
in human hearts for thousands of succeeding years--is suddenly to
be suspended--to have no more employment--to do no more work--guide
no more states--make no more melodies! Nay, the pang would be scarcely
less to believe that a fair intellect like that of Alfred Stevens,
or a wild, irregular genius, like that of Margaret Cooper--because
of its erring, either through perversity or blindness, is wholly
to become defunct, so far as employment is concerned--that they
are to be deprived of all privilege of working up to the lost
places--regaining the squandered talents--atoning, by industry and
humble desire, the errors and deficiencies of the past! We rather
believe that heaven is a world where the labors are more elevated,
the necessities less degrading; that it is no more permanent than
what we esteem present life; nay, that it is destined to other
transitions; that we may still ascend, on and on, and that each
heaven has its higher heaven yet. We believe that our immortality
is from the beginning; that time is only a periodical step in
eternity----that transition is the true meaning of life--and death
nothing more than a sign of progress. It may be an upward or a
downward progress, but it is not a toilsome march to a mere sleep.
Lavish as is the bounty of God, and boundless as are his resources,
there is nothing of him that we do know which can justify the idea
of such utter profligacy of material.

We transgress. Our business is with the present doings of our
dramatis persons and not with the future employment of their souls.
Still, we believe, the doctrine which we teach not only to be more
rational, but absolutely more moral than the conjectures on this
subject which are in ordinary use. More rational as relates to
the characteristics of the Deity, and more moral as it affects the
conduct and the purposes of man himself. There is something grand
beyond all things else, in the conception of this eternal progress
of the individual nature; its passage from condition to condition;
sphere to sphere; life to life; always busy, working for the mighty
Master; falling and sinking to mere menial toils, or achieving and
rising to more noble trusts; but, at all events, still working in
some way in the great world-plantation, and under the direct eye
of the sovereign World-Planter. The torture of souls on the one
hand, and the singing of psalms on the other, may be doctrines
infinitely more orthodox; but, to our mind, they seem immeasurably
inferior in grandeur, in propriety, in noble conception of the
appointments of the creature, and the wondrous and lovely designs
of the benignant Father.

The defeat of such a soul as that of Margaret Cooper can surely be
a temporary defeat only. It will regain strength, it must rise in
the future, it must recover the lost ground, and reassert the empire
whose sway it has unwillingly abandoned; for it is not through
will, wholly, by which we lose the moral eminence. Something is
due to human weaknesses; to the blindness in which a noble spirit
is sometimes suffered to grow into stature; disproportioned
stature--that, reaching to heaven, is yet shaken down and overthrown
by the merest breath of storm that sweeps suddenly beneath its
skies. The very hopelessness of Margaret Cooper's ambition, which
led her to misanthropy, was the source of an ever-fertile and
upspringing confidence. Thus it was that the favoring opinions which
Alfred Stevens expressed--a favoring opinion expressed by one whom
she soon discovered was well able to form one--accompanied by an
assurance that the dream of fame which her wild imagination had
formed should certainly be realized, gave him a large power over
her confidence. Her passion was sway--the sway of mind over mind--of
genius over sympathy--of the syren Genius over the subject Love.
It was this passion which had made her proud, which had filled her
mind with visions, and yielded to her a world by itself, and like
no other, filled with all forms of worship and attraction; chivalrous
faith, unflagging zeal, generous confidence, pure spirits, and the
most unquestioning loyalty! Ignorant of the world which she had not
seen, and of those movements of human passion which she had really
never felt, she naturally regarded Alfred Stevens as one of the
noble representatives of that imaginary empire which her genius
continually brought before her eyes. She saw in him the embodiment
of that faith in her intellect which it was the first and last hope
of her intellect to inspire; and seeing thus, it will be easy to
believe that her full heart, which, hitherto, had poured itself
forth on rocks, and trees, and solitary places, forgetful of all
prudence--a lesson which she had never learned--and rejoicing in
the sympathy of a being like herself, now gushed forth with all the
volume of its impatient fullness. The adroit art of her companion
led her for ever into herself; she was continually summoned to pour
forth the treasures of her mind and soul; and, toiling in the same
sort of egoisme in which her life heretofore had been consumed,
she was necessarily diverted from all doubts or apprehensions of
the occult purposes of him who had thus beguiled her over the long
frequented paths. As the great secret of success with the mere
worldling, is to pry into the secret of his neighbor while carefully
concealing his own, so it is the great misfortune of enthusiasm to
be soon blinded to a purpose which its own ardent nature neither
allows it to suspect nor penetrate. Enthusiasm is a thing of utter
confidence; it has no suspicion; it sets no watch on other hearts;
it is too constantly employed in pouring forth the treasures of its
own. It is easy, therefore, to deceive and betray it, to beguile
it into confidence, and turn all its revelations against itself.
How far the frequency of this usage in the world makes it honorable,
is a question which we need not discuss on this occasion.

Alfred Stevens had now been for some weeks in the village
of Charlemont, where, in the meantime, he had become an object
of constantly-increasing interest. The men shrank from him with a
feeling of inferiority; the women--the young ones being understood--shrank
from him also, but with that natural art of the sex which invites
pursuit, and strives to conquer even in flight. But it was soon
evident enough that Stevens bestowed his best regards solely upon
Margaret Cooper. If he sought the rest, it was simply in compliance
with those seeming duties of his ostensible profession which were
necessary to maintain appearances. Whether he loved Margaret Cooper
or not, he soon found a pleasure in her society which he sought
for in no other quarter of the village. The days, in spite of the
strife with William Hinkley, flew by with equal pleasantness and
rapidity to both. The unsophisticated mind of Margaret Cooper left
her sensible to few restraints upon their ordinary intercourse;
and, indeed, if she did know or regard them for an instant, it was
only to consider them as necessary restraints for the protection
of the ignorant and feeble of her sex--a class in which she never
once thought to include herself. Her attachment to Alfred Stevens,
though it first arose from the pleasure which her mind derived
from its intercourse with his, and not from any of those nice and
curious sympathies of temperament and taste which are supposed to
constitute the essence and comprise the secret of love, was yet
sufficient to blind her judgment to the risks of feeling, if nothing
more, which were likely to arise from their hourly-increasing
intimacy; and she wandered with him into the devious woods, and
they walked by moonlight among the solemn-shaded hills, and the
unconscious girl had no sort of apprehension that the spells of an
enslaving passion were rapidly passing over her soul.

How should she apprehend such spells? how break them? For the first
time in her life had she found intellectual sympathy--the only
moral response which her heart longed to hear. For the first time
had she encountered a mind which could do justice to, and correspond
on anything like equal terms with, her own. How could she think
that evil would ensue from an acquisition which yielded her the
only communion which she had ever craved Her confidence in herself,
in her own strength, and her ignorance of her own passions, were
sufficient to render her feelings secure; and then she was too well
satisfied of the superiority and nobleness of his. But, in truth,
she never thought upon the subject. Her mind dwelt only on the
divine forms and images of poetry. The ideal world had superseded,
not only the dangers, but the very aspect, of the real. Under the
magic action of her fancy, she had come to dwell

"With those gay creatures of the element
That in the colors of the rainbow live,
And play i' the plighted clouds"--

she had come to speak only in the one language, and of the one
topic; and, believing now that she had an auditor equally able to
comprehend and willing to sympathize with her cravings, she gave
free scope to the utterance of her fancies, and to the headlong
impulse of that imagination which had never felt the curb.

The young heart, not yet chilled by the world's denials, will readily
comprehend the beguiling influence of the dreaming and enthusiastic
nature of some dear spirit, in whose faith it has full confidence,
and whose tastes are kindred with its own. How sweet the luxury
of moonlight in commerce with such a congenial spirit! how heavenly
the occasional breath of the sweet southwest! how gentle and soothing
fond the whispers of night--the twiring progress of sad-shining
stars--the gentle sway of winds among the tree-tops--the plaintive
moan of billows, as they gather and disperse themselves along the
shores! To speak of these delights; to walk hand-in-hand along the
gray sands by the seaside, and whisper in murmuring tones, that seem
to gather sympathies from those of ocean; to guide the eye of the
beloved associate to the sudden object; to challenge the kindred
fancy which comments upon our own; to remember together, and repeat,
the happy verse of inspired poets, speaking of the scene, and to
the awakened heart which feels it; and, more, to pour forth one's
own inspirations in the language of tenderness and song, and awaken
in the heart of our companion the rapture to which our own has
given speech--these, which are subjects of mock and scorn to the
worldling, are substantial though not enduring joys to the young
and ardent nature.

In this communion, with all her pride, strength, and confidence,
Margaret Cooper was the merest child. Without a feeling of guile,
she was dreaming of the greatness which her ambition craved,
and telling her dreams, with all the artless freedom of the child
who has some golden fancy of the future, which it seeks to have
confirmed by the lips of experience. The wily Stevens led her on,
gave stimulus to her enthusiasm, made her dreams become reasonable
in her eyes, and laughed at them in his secret heart. She sung at
his suggestion, and sang her own verses with all that natural tremor
which even the most self-assured poet feels on such an occasion.

"Beautiful!" the arch-hypocrite would exclaim, as if unconscious
of utterance; "beautiful!" and his hand would possess itself of
the trembling fingers of hers. "But beautiful as it is, Margaret,
I am sure that it is nothing to what you could do under more
auspicious circumstances."

"Ah! if there were ears to hear, if there were hearts to feel, and
eyes to weep, I feel, I know, what might be done. No, no! this is
nothing. This is the work of a child."

"Nay, Margaret, if the work of a child, it is that of a child of
genius."

"Ah! do not flatter me, Alfred Stevens, do not deceive me. I am too
willing to believe you, for it is so dear a feeling to think that
I too am a poet. Yet, at the first, I had not the smallest notion
of this kind: I neither knew what poetry was, nor felt the desire
to be a poet. Yet I yearned with strange feelings, which uttered
themselves in that form ere I had seen books or read the verses
of others. It was an instinct that led me as it would. I sometimes
fear that I have been foolish in obeying it; for oh, what has it
brought me? What am I? what are my joys? I am lonely even with my
companions. I share not the sports and feel not the things which
delight my sex. Their dances and frolics give me no pleasure. I
have no sympathy with them or their cares. I go apart--I am here
on the hills, or deep in the forests--sad, lonely, scarcely knowing
what I am, and what I desire."

"You are not alone, nor are your pleasures less acute than theirs.
If they laugh, their laughter ends in sleep. If you are sad, you lose
not the slightest faculty of perception or sensibility, but rather
gain them in consequence. Laughter and tears are signs neither
of happiness nor grief, and as frequently result from absolute
indifference as from any active emotion. If you are absent from them,
you have better company. You can summon spirits to your communion,
Margaret; noble thoughts attend you; eyes that cheer, lips that
assure you, and whispers, from unknown attendants, that bid you be
of good heart, for the good time is coming. Ah! Margaret, believe
me when I tell you that time is at hand. Such a genius as yours,
such a spirit, can not always be buried in these woods."

It was in such artful language as this that the arch-hypocrite
flattered and beguiled her. They were wandering along the edge of
the streamlet to which we have more than once conducted the footsteps
of the reader. The sun was about setting. The autumn air was mild
with a gentle breathing from the south. The woods were still and
meek as the slumbers of an infant. The quiet of the scene harmonized
with the temper of their thoughts and feelings. They sat upon
a fragment of the rock. Margaret was silent, but her eyes were
glistening bright--not with hope only, but with that first glimmering
consciousness of a warmer feeling, which gives a purple light to
hope, and makes the heart tremble, for the first time, with its
own expectations. It did not escape Alfred Stevens that, for the
first time, her eye sank beneath his glance; for the first time
there was a slight flush upon her cheek. He was careful not to
startle and alarm the consciousness which these signs indicated.
The first feeling which the young heart has of its dependence upon
another is one little short of terror; it is a feeling which wakens
up suspicion, and puts all the senses upon the watch. To appear
to perceive this emotion is to make it circumspect; to disarm it,
one must wear the aspect of unconsciousness. The wily Stevens,
practised in the game, and master of the nature of the unsuspecting
girl, betrayed in his looks none of the intelligence which he felt.
If he uttered himself in the language of admiration, it was that
admiration which would be natural to a profound adorer of literature
and all its professors. His words were those of the amateur:--

"I can not understand, Margaret, how you have studied--how you have
learned so much--your books are few--you have had no masters. I
never met in my life with so remarkable an instance of unassisted
endeavor."

"My books were hero in the woods--among these old rocks. My teacher
was solitude. Ah! there is no teacher like one's own heart. My
instinct made me feel my deficiencies--my deficiencies taught me
contemplation--and from contemplation came thoughts and cravings,
and you know, when the consciousness of our lack is greatest, then,
even the dumb man finds a voice. I found my voice in consequence
of my wants. My language you see is that of complaint only."

"And a sweet and noble language it is, Margaret; but it is not in
poetry alone that your utterance is so distinct and beautiful--you
sing too with a taste as well as power which would prove that
contemplation was as happy in bringing about perfection in the one
as in the other art. Do sing me, Margaret, that little ditty which
you sang here the other night?"

His hand gently detained and pressed hers as he urged the request.

"I would rather not sing to-night," she replied, "I do not feel
as if I could, and I trust altogether to feeling. I will sing for
you some other time when you do not ask, and, perhaps would prefer
not to hear me."

"To hear you at all, Margaret, is music to my ears."

She was silent, and her fingers made a slight movement to detach
themselves from his.

"No, Margaret, do not withdraw them! Let me detain them
thus--longer--for ever! My admiration of you has been too deeply
felt not to have been too clearly shown, Your genius is too dear
to me now to suffer me to lose it. Margaret--dear Margaret!"

She spoke not--her breathing became quick and hard.

"You do not speak, let me hope that you are not angry with me?"

"No, no!" she whispered faintly. He continued with more boldness,
and while he spoke, his arm encircled her waist.

"A blessed chance brought me to your village. I saw you and returned.
I chose a disguise in which I might study you, and see how far the
treasures of your mind confirmed the noble promise of your face.
They have done more. Like him who finds the precious ore among the
mountains, I can not part with you so found. I must tear you from
the soil. I must bear you with me. You must be mine, Margaret--you
must go with me where the world will see, and envy me my prize."

He pressed her to his bosom. She struggled slightly.

"Do not, do not, Alfred Stevens, do not press me--do not keep
me. You think too much of me. I am no treasure--alas! this is all
deception. You can not--can not desire it?"

"Do I not! Ah! Margaret, what else do I desire now? Do you think
me only what I appear in Charlemont?"

"No! no!"

"I have the power of a name, Margaret, in my profession--among a
numerous people--and that power is growing into wealth and sway. I
am feared and honored, loved by some, almost worshipped by others;
and what has led me from this sway, to linger among these hills--to
waste hours so precious to ambition--to risk the influence which I
had already secured--what, but a higher impulse--a dearer prospect--a
treasure, Margaret, of equal beauty and genius."

Her face was hidden upon his bosom. He felt the beating of her
heart against his hand.

"If you have a genius for song, Margaret Cooper, I, too, am not
without my boast. In my profession, men speak of my eloquence as
that of a genius which has few equals, and no superior."

"I know it--it must be so!"

"Move me not to boast, dear Margaret; it is in your ears only that
I do so--and only to assure you that, in listening to my love, you
do not yield to one utterly obscure, and wanting in claims, which,
as yours must be finally, are already held to be established and
worthy of the best admiration of the intelligent and wise. Do you
hear me, Margaret?"

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