Charlemont

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"Is it possible!"

"Can it be!"

"Bless me! but I always thought something wrong."

"And Betty, her own maid, told you? Well, who should know, if she
don't?"

"And this, too, after all her airs!"

"Her great smartness, her learning, and verse-making! I never knew
any good come from books yet."

"And never will, Jane," said another, with an equivocal expression,
with which Jane was made content; and, after a full half-hour's
confabulation, in the primitive style, the parties separated--each,
in her way, to give as much circulation to Betty's inuendoes as
the importance of the affair deserved.

Scandal travels along the highways, seen by all but the victim.
Days and nights passed; and in the solitude of lonely paths, by
the hillside or the rivulet, Margaret Cooper still wandered with
her lover. She heard not the poisonous breath which was already
busy with her virgin fame. She had no doubts, whatever might be
the event, that the heart of Alfred Stevens could leave her without
that aliment which, in these blissful moments, seemed to be her
very breath of life. But she felt many fears, many misgivings, she
knew not why. A doubt, a cloud of anxiety, hung brooding on the
atmosphere. In a heart which is unsophisticated, the consciousness,
however vague, that all is not right, is enough to produce this cloud;
but, with the gradual progress of that heart to the indulgence of
the more active passions, this consciousness necessarily increases
and the conflict then begins between the invading passion and the
guardian principle. We have seen enough to know what must be the
result of such a conflict with a nature such as hers, under the
education which she had received. It did not end in the expulsion
of her lover. It did not end in the discontinuance of those long
and frequent rambles amid silence, and solitude, and shadow. She
had not courage for this; and the poor, vain mother, flattered with
the idea that her son-in-law would be a preacher, beheld nothing
wrong in their nightly wanderings, and suffered her daughter, in
such saintly society, to go forth without restraint or rebuke.

There was one person in the village who was not satisfied that
Margaret Cooper should fall a victim, either to the cunning of
another, or to her own passionate vanity. This was our old friend
Calvert. He was rather, inclined to be interested in the damsel,
in spite of the ill treatment of his protege, if it were only in
consequence of the feelings with which she had inspired him. It
has been seen that, in the affair of the duel, he was led to regard
the stranger with an eye of suspicion. This feeling had been further
heightened by the statements of Ned Hinkley, which, however loose
and inconclusive, were yet of a kind to show that there was some
mystery about Stevens--that he desired concealment in some respects--a
fact very strongly inferred from his non-employment of the village
postoffice, and the supposition--taken for true--that he employed
that of some distant town. Ned Hinkley had almost arrived at
certainty in this respect; and some small particulars which seemed
to bear on this conviction, which he had recently gathered, taken
in connection with the village scandal in reference to the parties,
determined the old man to take some steps in the matter to forewarn
the maiden, or at least her mother, of the danger of yielding too
much confidence to one of whom so little was or could be known.

It was a pleasant afternoon, and Calvert was sitting beneath his
roof-tree, musing over this very matter, when he caught a glimpse
of the persons of whom he thought, ascending one of the distant
hills, apparently on their way to the lake. He rose up instantly,
and, seizing his staff, hurried off to see the mother of the damsel.
The matter was one of the nicest delicacy--not to be undertaken
lightly--not to be urged incautiously. Nothing, indeed, but a strong
sense of duty could have determined him upon a proceeding likely
to appear invidious, and which might be so readily construed,
by a foolish woman, into an impertinence. Though a man naturally
of quick, warm feelings, Calvert had been early taught to think
cautiously--indeed, the modern phrenologist would have said that,
in the excess of this prudent organ lay the grand weakness of his
moral nature. This delayed him in the contemplated performance much
longer than his sense of its necessity seemed to justify. Having
now resolved, however, and secure in the propriety of his object,
he did not scruple any longer.

A few minutes sufficed to bring him to the cottage of the old
lady, and her voice in very friendly tenor commanded him to enter.
Without useless circumlocution, yet without bluntness, the old
man broached the subject; and, without urging any of the isolated
facts of which he was possessed, and by which his suspicions were
awakened, he dwelt simply upon the dangers which might result
from such a degree of confidence as was given to the stranger. The
long, lonely rambles in the woods, by night as well as day, were
commented on, justly, but in an indulgent spirit; and the risks of
a young and unsuspecting maiden, under such circumstances, were shown
with sufficient distinctness for the comprehension of the mother,
had she been disposed to hear. But never was good old man, engaged
in the thankless office of bestowing good advice, so completely
confounded as he was by the sort of acknowledgments which his
interference obtained. A keen observer might have seen the gathering
storm while he was speaking; and, at every sentence, there was a low,
running commentary, bubbling up from the throat of the opinionated
dame, somewhat like rumbling thunder, which amply denoted the rising
tempest. It was a sort of religious effort which kept the old lady
quiet till Calvert had fairly reached a conclusion. Then, rising
from her seat, she approached him, smoothed back her apron, perked
out her chin, and, fixing her keen gray eyes firmly upon his own,
with her nose elongated to such a degree as almost to suggest the
possibility of a pointed collision between that member and the
corresponding one of his own face, she demanded--

"Have you done--have you got through?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cooper, this is all I came to say. It is the suggestion
of prudence--the caution of a friend--your daughter is young, very
young, and--"

"I thank you! I thank you! My daughter is young, very young; but
she is no fool, Mr. Calvert--let me tell you that! Margaret Cooper
is no fool. If you don't know that, I do. I know her. She's able
to take care of herself as well as the best of us."

"I am glad you think so, Mrs. Cooper, but the best of us find it a
difficult matter to steer clear of danger, and error and misfortune;
and the wisest, my dear madam, are only too apt to fall when they
place their chief reliance on their wisdom."

"Indeed! that's a new doctrine to me, and I reckon to everybody
else. If it's true, what's the use of all your schooling, I want
to know?"

"Precious little, Mrs. Cooper, if--"

"Ah! precious little; and let me tell you, Mr. Calvert, I think
it's mighty strange that you should think Margaret Cooper in more
need of your advice, than Jane Colter, or Betsy Barnes, or Susan
Mason, or Rebecca Forbes, or even the widow Thackeray."

"I should give the same advice to them under the same circumstances,
Mrs. Cooper."

"Should you, indeed! Then I beg you will go and give it to them,
for if they are not in the same circumstances now, they'd give each
of them an eye to be so. Ay, wouldn't they! Yes! don't I know, Mr.
Calvert, that it's all owing to envy that you come here talking
about Brother Stevens."

"But I do not speak of Mr. Stevens, Mrs. Cooper; were it any other
young man with whom your daughter had such intimacy I should speak
in the same manner."

"Would you, indeed? Tell that to the potatoes. Don't I know better.
Don't I know that if your favorite, that you made so much of--your
adopted son, Bill Hinkley--if he could have got her to look at
him, they might have walked all night and you'd never have said
the first word. He'd have given one eye for her, and so would every
girl in the village give an eye for Brother Stevens. I'm not so
old but I know something. But it won't do. You can go to the widow
Thackeray, Mr. Calvert. It'll do her good to tell her that it's
very dangerous for her to be thinking about young men from morning
to night. It's true you can't say anything about the danger, for
precious little danger she's in; but, lord, wouldn't she jump to
it if she had a chance. Let her alone for that. You'd soon have
cause enough to give her your good advice about the danger, and
much good would come of it. She'd wish, after all was said, that
the danger was only twice as big and twice as dangerous."

Such was the conclusion of Mr. Calvert's attempt to give good
counsel. It resulted as unprofitably in this as in most cases; but
it had not utterly fallen, like the wasted seed, in stony places.
There was something in it to impress itself upon the memory of Mrs.
Cooper; and she resolved that when her daughter came in, it should
be the occasion of an examination into her feelings and her relation
to the worthy brother, such as she had more than once before
meditated to make.

But Margaret Cooper did not return till a comparatively late hour;
and the necessity of sitting up after her usual time of retiring,
by making the old lady irritable, had the effect of giving some
additional force to the suggestions of Mr. Calvert. When Margaret
did return, she came alone. Stevens had attended her only to the
wicket. She did not expect to find her mother still sitting up; and
started, with an appearance of disquiet, when she met her glance.
The young girl was pale and haggard. Her eye had a dilated, wild
expression. Her step faltered; her voice was scarcely distinct as
she remarked timidly--

"Not yet abed, mother?"

"No! it's a pretty time for you to keep me up."

"But why did you sit up, mother? It's not usual with you to do so."

"No! but it's high time for me to sit up, and be on the watch too,
when here's the neighbors coming to warn me to do so--and telling
me all about your danger."

"Ha! my danger--speak--what danger, mother?"

"Don't you know what danger? Don't you know?"

"Know!" The monosyllable subsided in a gasp. At that moment Margaret
Cooper could say no more.

"Well, I suppose you don't know, and so I'll tell you. Here's been
that conceited, stupid old man, Calvert, to tell me how wrong it
is for you to go out by night walking with Brother Stevens; and
hinting to me that you don't know how to take care of yourself
with all your learning; and how nobody knows anything about Brother
Stevens; as if nobody was wise for anything but himself. But I gave
him as good as he brought, I'll warrant you. I sent him off with
a flea in his ear!"

It was fortunate for the poor girl that the light, which was that
of a dipped candle, was burning in the corner of the chimney, and
was too dim to make her features visible. The ghastly tale which
they told could not have been utterly unread even by the obtuse
and opinionated mind of the vain mother. The hands of Margaret were
involuntarily clasped in her agony, and she felt very much like
falling upon the floor; but, with a strong effort, her nerves
were braced to the right tension, and she continued to endure, in
a speechless terror, which was little short of frenzy, the outpourings
of her mother's folly which was a frenzy of another sort.

"I sent him off," she repeated, "with a flea in his ear. I could
see what the old fool was driving after, and I as good as told him
so. If it had been his favorite, his adopted son, Bill Hinkley, it
would have been another guess-story--I reckon. Then you might have
walked out where you pleased together, at all hours, and no harm
done, no danger; old Calvert would have thought it the properest
thing in the world. But no Bill Hinkley for me. I'm for Brother
Stevens, Margaret; only make sure of him, my child--make sure of
him."

"No more of this, dear mother, I entreat you. Let us go to bed,
and think no more of it."

"And why should we not think of it? I tell you, Margaret, YOU
MUST THINK OF IT! Brother Stevens soon will be a preacher, and a
fine speck he will be. There'll be no parson like him in all west
Kentucky. As for John Cross, I reckon he won't be able to hold a
candle to him. Brother Stevens is something to try for. You must
play your cards nicely, Margaret. Don't let him see too soon that
you like him. Beware of that! But don't draw off too suddenly as
if you didn't like him--that's worse still; for very few men like
to see that they ain't altogether pleasing even at first sight to
the lady that they like. There's a medium in all things, and you
must just manage it, as if you wa'n't thinking at all about him,
or love, or a husband, or anything; only take care always to turn
a quick ear to what he says, and seem to consider it always as if
'twas worth your considering. And look round when he speaks, and
smile softly sometimes; and don't be too full of learning and wisdom
in what you say, for I've found that men of sense love women best
when they seem to talk most like very young children--maybe because
they think it's a sign of innocence. But I reckon, Margaret, you
don't want much teaching. Only be sure and fix him; and don't stop
to think when he asks. Be sure to have your answer ready, and you
can't say 'yes' too quickly now-a-days, when the chances are so
very few."

The mother paused to take breath. Her very moral and maternal
counsel had fallen upon unheeding ears. But Margaret was sensible
of the pause, and was desirous of taking advantage of it. She rose
from her chair, with the view of retiring; but the good old dame,
whose imagination had been terribly excited by the delightful
idea of having a preacher for her son-in-law who was to take such
precedence over all the leaders of the other tribes, was not willing
to abridge her eloquence.

"Why, you're in a great hurry now, Margaret. Where was your hurry
when you were with Brother Stevens? Ah! you jade, can't I guess--don't
I know? There you were, you two, under the trees, looking at the
moon, and talking such sweet, foolish nonsense. I reckon, Margaret,
'twould puzzle you to tell what HE said, or what YOU said, I can
guess he didn't talk much religion to you, heh? Ah! I know it all.
It's the old story. It's been so with all young people, and will
bo so till the end. Love is the strangest thing, and it does listen
to the strangest nonsense. Ain't it so, Margaret? I know nothing
but love would ever dumbfounder you in this way; why, child, have
you lost your tongue? What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, mother, let me retire now, I have such a headache."

"Heartache, you mean."

"Heartache it is," replied the other desperately, with an air of
complete abandonment.

"Ah! well, it's clear that he's got the heartache quite as much
as you, for he almost lives with you now. But make him speak out,
Margaret--get him to say the word, and don't let him be too free
until he does. No squeezing of hands, no kissing, no--"

"No more, no more, I entreat you, mother, if you would not--drive
me mad! Why do you speak to me thus--why counsel me in this manner?
Leave me alone, I pray you, let me retire--I must--I must sleep
now!"

The mother was not unaccustomed to such passionate bursts of speech
from her daughter, and she ascribed the startling energy of her
utterance now, to an excited spirit in part, and partly to the
headache of which she complained.

"What! do you feel so bad, my child? Well, I won't keep you up
any longer. I wouldn't have kept you up so long, if I hadn't been
vexed by that old fool, Calvert."

"Mr. Calvert is a good man, mother."

"Well, he may be--I don't say a word against that," replied the
mother, somewhat surprised at the mildly reproachful nature of that
response which her daughter had made, so different from her usual
custom:--"he may be very good, but I think he's very meddlesome to
come here talking about Brother Stevens."

"He meant well, mother."

"Well or ill, it don't matter. Do you be ready when Brother Stevens
says the word. He'll say it before long. He's mighty keen after
you, Margaret. I've seen it in his eyes; only you keep a little
off, till he begins to press and be anxious; and after that he can't
help himself. He'll be ready for any terms; and look you, when a
man's ready none of your long bargains. Settle up at once. As for
waiting till he gets permission to preach, I wouldn't think of it.
A man can be made a preacher or anything, at any time, but 'tain't
so easy in these times, for a young woman to be made a wife. It's
not every day that one can get a husband, and such a husband! Look
at Jane Colter, and Betsy Barnes, and Rebecca Forbes, and Susan
Mason; they'll be green again, I reckon, before the chance comes
to them; ay, and the widow Thackeray--though she's had her day
already. If 'twas a short one she's got no reason to complain.
She'll learn how to value it before it begins again. But, go to
bed, my child, you oughtn't to have a headache. No! no! you should
leave it to them that's not so fortunate. They'll have headaches
and heartaches enough, I warrant you, before they get such a man
as Brother Stevens."

At last, Margaret Cooper found herself alone and in her chamber.
With unusual vigilance she locked and doublelocked the door. She
then flung herself upon the bed. Her face was buried in the clothes.
A convulsion of feeling shook her frame. But her eyes remained
dry, and her cheeks were burning. She rose at length and began to
undress, but for this she found herself unequal. She entered the
couch and sat up in it--her hands crossed upon her lap--her face
wan, wild, the very picture of hopelessness if not desperation!
The words of her weak mother had tortured her; but what was this
agony to that which was occasioned by her own thoughts.

"Oh God!" she exclaimed at length, "can it be real? Can it be
true? Do I wake? Is it no dream? Am I, am I what I dare not name
to myself--and dread to hear from any other? Alas! it is true--too
true. That shade, that wood!--oh, Alfred Stevens! Alfred Stevens!
What have you done! To what have you beguiled me!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

STRENGTH AFTER FALL.

That weary night no sleep came to the eyelids of the hapless
Margaret Cooper. The garrulous language of the mother had awakened
far other emotions in her bosom than those which she labored to inspire;
and the warning of Mr. Calvert, for the first time impressed upon
herself the terrible conviction that she was lost. In the wild
intoxicating pleasures of that new strange dream, she had been
wofully unconscious of the truth. So gradual had been the progress
of passion, that it had never alarmed or startled her. Besides, it
had come to her under a disguise afforded by the customary cravings
of her soul. Her vanity had been the medium by which her affections
had been won, by which her confidence had been beguiled, by which
the guardian watchers of her virtue had been laid to sleep.

What a long and dreadful night was that when Margaret Cooper was
first brought to feel the awful truth in its true impressiveness
of wo. Alas! how terribly do the pleasures of sin torture us. The
worst human foe is guilt. The severest censure the consciousness
of wrong doing. Poverty may be endured--nay is--and virtue still
be secure; since the mind may be made strong to endure the heaviest
toil, yet cherish few desires; the loss of kin may call for few
regrets, if we feel that we have religiously performed our duties
toward them, and requited all their proper claims upon us. Sickness
and pain may even prove benefits and blessings, if it shall so
happen that we resign ourselves without complaint, to the scourge
of the chastener, and grow patient beneath his stripes. But that
self-rebuke of one's own spirit from which we may not fly--that
remorseful and ever-vexing presence which haunts us, and pursues with
a wing even more fleet than that of fear--which tells clamorously
of what we had, and scornfully of what we have lost--lost for
ever! that is the demon from whom there is no escape, and beyond
whom there is no torture. Vainly would we strive with this relentless
enemy. Every blow aimed at its shadowy bosom recoils upon our own.
In the crowd, it takes the place of other forms and dogs us with
suspicious glances; in the solitude, it stalks boldly to our side,
confronts us with its audacious truths and terrible denunciations--leaves
no moment secure, waking or sleeping! It is the ghost of murdered
virtue, brooding over its grave in that most dark and dismal of all
sepulchres, the human heart. And if we cry aloud, as did Margaret
Cooper, with vain prayer for the recall of a single day, with what
a yell of derisive mockery it answers to our prayer.

The night was passed in the delusive effort of the mind to argue
itself into a state of fancied security. She endeavored to recall
those characteristics in Alfred Stevens, by which her confidence
had been beguiled. This task was not a difficult one in that early
day of her distress; before experience had yet come to confirm the
apprehensions of doubt--before the intoxicating dream of a first
passion had yet begun to stale upon her imagination. Her own elastic
mind helped her in this endeavor. Surely, she thought, where the
mind is so noble and expansive, where the feelings are so tender and
devoted, the features so lofty and impressive, the look so sweet,
the language so delicate and refined, there can be no falsehood.

"The devotion of such a man," she erringly thought, "might well
sanction the weakness of a woman's heart--might well persuade to
the momentary error which none will seek more readily to repair
than himself. If he be true to me, what indeed should I care for
the scorn of others."

Alas! for the credulous victim. This was the soul of her error.
This scorn of others--of the opinions of the world around her, is
the saddest error of which woman, who is the most dependant of all
beings in the moral world, can ever be guilty. But such philosophy
did not now deceive even the poor girl by whom it was uttered.
It is a melancholy truth, that, where there is no principle, the
passions can not be relied on; and the love of Alfred Stevens had
hitherto shown itself in selfishness. Margaret Cooper felt this,
but she did not dare to believe it.

"No! no!" she muttered--"I will not doubt--I will not fear! He is
too noble, too generous, too fond! I could not be deceived."

Her reliance was upon her previous judgment, not upon his principles.
Her self-esteem assisted to make this reference sufficient for the
purposes of consolation, and this was all that she desired in this
first moment of her doubt and apprehension.

"And if he be true--if he keep for ever the faith that his lips and
looks declare--then will I heed nothing of the shame and the sin.
The love of such a man is sufficient recompense for the loss of all
besides. What to me is the loss of society? what should I care for
the association and opinions of these in Charlemont? And elsewhere--he
will bear me hence where none can know. Ah! I fear not: he will be
true."

Her self-esteem was recovering considerably from its first overthrow.
Her mind was already preparing to do battle with those, the scorn
of whom she anticipated, and whose judgments she had always hitherto
despised. This was an easy task. She was yet to find that it was not
the only task. Her thoughts are those of many, in like situations,
and it is for this reason that we dwell upon them. Our purpose is,
to show the usual processes of self-deception.

Margaret Cooper, like a large class of persons of strong natural
mind and sanguine temper, was only too apt to confound the cause
of virtue with its sometimes uncouth, harsh and self-appointed
professors. She overlooked the fact that public opinion, though
a moral object against which woman dares not often offend, is yet
no standard for her government; that principles are determinable
elsewhere; and that, whatever the world may think of them, and whatever
may be their seeming unimportance under existing circumstances,
are the only real moral securities of earth. She might fly from
Charlemont, either into a greater world, or into a more complete
solitude, but she would fly to no greater certainties than she now
possessed. Her securities were still based upon the principles of
Alfred Stevens, and of these she knew nothing. She knew that he
was a man of talent--of eloquence; alas for her! she had felt it;
of skill--she had been its victim; of rare sweetness of utterance,
of grace and beauty; and as she enumerated to herself these his
mental powers and personal charms, she felt, however numerous the
catalogue, that none of these afforded her the guaranty she sought.

She arose the next day somewhat more composed, and with a face
which betrayed sleeplessness, but nothing worse. This she ascribed
to the headache with which she had retired. She had not slept an
instant, and she arose entirely unrefreshed. But the stimulating
thoughts which had kept her wakeful, furnished her with sufficient
strength to appear as usual in the household, and to go through
her accustomed duties. But it was with an impatience scarcely
restrainable that she waited for the approach of evening which
would bring her lover. Him she felt it now absolutely of the last
necessity that she should see; that she should once more go with
him to those secret places, the very thougnt of which inspired her
with terror, and, laying bare her soul to his eyes, demand of him
the only restitution which he could make.

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