Charlemont

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Charlemont

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

He came. Once more she descended the steps to meet him--Her mother
arrested her on the stairway. A cunning leer was in her eye, as she
looked into the woful, impassive eyes of her daughter. She grinned
with a sort of delight expressive of the conviction that the advice
she had given the night before was to be put in execution soon.

"Fix him, Margaret; he's mighty eager for you. You've cut your
eye-tooth--be quick, and you'll have a famous parson for a husband
yet."

The girl shrunk from the counsellor as if she had been a serpent.
The very counsel was enough to show her the humiliating attitude
in which she stood to all parties.

"Remember," said the old woman, detaining her--"don't be too willing
at first. Let him speak fairly out. A young maiden can't be too
backward, until the man offers to make her a young wife!"

The last words went to her soul like an arrow.

"A young maiden!" she almost murmured aloud, as she descended the
steps--"O God! how lovely now, to my eyes, appears the loveliness
of a young maiden!"

She joined Stevens in silence, the mother watching them with the
eyes of a maternal hawk as they went forth together. They pursued
a customary route, and, passing through one of the gorges of the
surrounding hills, they soon lost sight of the village. When the
forest-shadows had gathered thickly around them, and the silence
of the woods became felt, Stevens approached more nearly, and,
renewing a former liberty, put his arm about her waist. She gently
but firmly removed it, but neither of them spoke a word. A dense
copse appeared before them. Toward it he would have led the way.
But she resolutely turned aside, and, while a shudder passed over
her frame, exclaimed--

"Not there--not there!"

Breathlessly she spoke. He well enough understood her. They pursued
an opposite direction, and, in the shade of a wood which before
they had never traversed, they at length paused. Stevens, conducting
her to the trunk of a fallen tree, seated her, and placed himself
beside her. Still they were silent. There was a visible constraint
upon both. The thoughts and feelings of both were alike active--but
very unlike in character. With him, passion, reckless passion,
was uppermost; selfish in all its phases, and resolute on its own
indulgence at every hazard. In her bosom was regret if not remorse,
mingled with doubts and hopes in pretty equal proportion. Yet had
she, even then, but little doubt of him. She accused him of no
practice. She fancied, foolish girl, that his error, like her own,
had been that of blind impulse, availing itself of a moment of
unguarded reason to take temporary possession of the citadel of
prudence. That he was calculating, cunning--that his snares had
been laid beforehand--she had not the least idea. But she was to
grow wiser in this and other respects in due season. How little
did she then conjecture the coldness and hardness of that base and
selfish heart which had so fanned the consuming flame in hers!

Her reserve and coolness were unusual. She had been the creature,
heretofore, of the most uncalculating impulse. The feeling was spoken,
the thought uttered, as soon as conceived. Now she was silent. He
expected her to speak--nay, he expected reproaches, and was prepared
to meet them. He had his answer for any reproaches which she might
make. But for that stony silence of her lips he was not prepared.
The passive grief which her countenance betrayed--so like
despair--repelled and annoyed him. Yet, wherefore had she come,
if not to complain bitterly, and, after exhaustion, be soothed at
last? Such had been his usual experience in all such cases. But
the unsophisticated woman before him had no language for such a
situation as was hers. Her pride, her ambition--the very intensity
of all her moods--rendered the effort at speech a mockery, and left
her dumb.

"You are sad, Margaret--silent and very cold to me," he said, at
last breaking the silence. His tones were subdued to a whisper,
and how full of entreating tenderness! She slowly raised her eyes
from the ground, and fixed them upon him. What a speech was in that
one look! There was no trace of excitement, scarcely of expression,
in her face. There was no flush upon her cheeks. She was pale as
death. She was still silent. Her eye alone had spoken; and from
its searching but stony glance his own fell in some confusion to
the ground. There was a dreary pause, which he at length broke:--

"You are still silent, Margaret--why do you not speak to me?"

"It is for you to speak, Alfred," was her reply. It was full
of significance, understood but not FELT by her companion. What,
indeed, had she to say--what could she say--while he said nothing?
She was the victim. With him lay the means of rescue and preservation.
She but waited the decision of one whom, in her momentary madness,
she had made the arbiter of her destiny. Her reply confused him.
He would have preferred to listen to the ordinary language of
reproach. Had she burst forth into tears and lamentations--had she
cried, "You have wronged me--you must do me justice!"--he would
have been better pleased than with the stern, unsuggestive character
that she assumed. To all this, his old experience would have given
him an easy answer. But to be driven to condemn himself--to define
his own doings with the name due to his deserts--to declare his
crime, and proffer the sufficient atonement--was an unlooked-for
necessity.

"You are displeased with me, Margaret."

He dared not meet her glance while uttering this feeble and
purposeless remark. It was so short of all that he should have
said--of all that she expected--that her eyes glistened with a
sudden expression of indignation which was new to them in looking
upon him. There was a glittering sarcasm in her glance, which
showed the intensity of her feelings in the comment which they
involuntarily made on the baldness and poverty of his. Displeasure,
indeed! That such an epithet should be employed to describe the
withering pang, the vulturous, gnawing torture in her bosom--and
that fiery fang which thought, like some winged serpent, was
momentarily darting into her brain!

"Displeased!" she exclaimed, in low, bitter tones, which she seemed
rather desirous to suppress--"no, no! sir--not displeased. I am
miserable, most miserable--anything but displeased. I am too wretched
to feel displeasure!"

"And to me you owe this wretchedness, dear Margaret--THAT--THAT
is what you would say. Is it not, Margaret? I have wronged--I have
ruined you! From me comes this misery! You hate, you would denounce
me."

He put his arm about her waist--he sank upon his knee beside her--his
eye, now that he had found words, could once more look courageously
into hers.

"Wronged--ruined!" she murmured, using a part of his words, and
repeating them as if she did not altogether realize their perfect
sense.

"Ay, you would accuse me, Margaret," he continued--"you would
reproach and denounce me--you hate me--I deserve it--I deserve it."

She answered with some surprise:--

"No, Alfred Stevens, I do not accuse--I do not denounce you. I am
wretched--I am miserable. It is for you to say if I am wronged and
ruined. I am not what I was--I know THAT!--What I am--what I will
be!--"

She paused! Her hands were clasped suddenly and violently--she
looked to heaven, and, for the first time, the tears, streamed from
her eyes like rain--a sudden, heavy shower, which was soon over.

"Ah, Margaret, you would have me accuse myself--and I do. The crime
is mine! I have done you this wrong---"

She interrupted him.

"No, Alfred Stevens, _I_ have done wrong! I FEEL that I have done
wrong. That I have been feeble and criminal, _I_ KNOW. I will not
be so base as to deny what I can not but feel. As for your crime,
you know best what it is. I know mine. I know that my passions are
evil and presumptuous; and though I blush to confess their force,
it is yet due to the truth that I should do so, though I sink into
the earth with my shame. But neither your self-reproaches nor my
confession will acquit us. Is there nothing, Alfred Stevens, that
can be done? Must I fall before you, here, amidst the woods which
have witnessed my shame, and implore you to save me? I do! Behold me!
I am at your feet--my face is in fhe dust. Oh! Alfred Stevens--when
I called your eyes to watch, in the day of my pride, the strong-winged
eagle of our hills, did I look as now? Save me from this shame!
save me! For, though I have no reproaches, yet God knows, when we
looked on that eagle's flight together, my soul had no such taint
as fills it now. Whatever were my faults, my follies, my weaknesses,
Heaven knows, I felt not, feared not this! a thought--a dream of
such a passion, then--never came to my bosom. From you it came! You
put it there! You woke up the slumbering emotion--you--but no!--I
will not accuse you! I will only implore you to save me! Can it be
done? can you do it--will you--will you not?"

"Rise, dearest Margaret--let me lift you!" She had thrown herself
upon the earth, and she clung to it.

"No, no! your words may lift me, Alfred Stevens, when your hands
can not. If you speak a hope, a promise of safety, it will need
no other help to make me rise! If you do not!--I would not wish to
rise again. Speak! let me hear, even as I am, what my doom shall
be? The pride which has made me fall shall be reconciled to my
abasement."

"Margaret, this despair is idle. There is no need for it. Do I not
tell you that there is no danger?"

"Why did you speak of ruin?" she demanded.

"I know not--the word escaped me. There is no ruin. I will save you.
I am yours--yours only. Believe me, I will do you right. I regard
you as sacredly my wife as if the rites of the church had so decreed
it."

"I dare not disbelieve you, Alfred! I have no hope else. Your
words lift me! Oh! Alfred Stevens, you did not mean the word, but
how true it was; what a wreck, what a ruin do I feel myself now--what
a wreck have I become!"

"A wreck, a ruin! no, Margaret, no! never were you more beautiful
than at this very moment. These large, sad eyes--these long, dark
lashes seem intended to bear the weight of tears. These cheeks are
something paler than their wont, but not less beautiful, and these
lips--"

He would have pressed them with his own--he would have taken her
into his arms, but she repulsed him.

"No, no! Alfred--this must not be. I am yours. Let me prove to you
that I am firm enough to protect your rights from invasion."

"But why so coy, dearest? Do you doubt me?"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Ah! but you do. Why do you shrink from me--why this coldness? If
you are mine, if these charms are mine, why not yield them to me?
I fear, Margaret, that you doubt me still?"

"I do not--dare not doubt you, Alfred Stevens. My life hangs upon
this faith."

"Why so cold, then?"

"I am not cold. I love you--I will be your wife; and never was
wife more faithful, more devoted, than I will be to you; but, if
you knew the dreadful agony which I have felt, since that sad moment
of my weakness, you would forbear and pity me."

"Hear me, Margaret; to-morrow is Saturday. John Cross is to be here
in the evening. He shall marry us on Sunday. Are you willing?"

"Oh, yes! thankful, happy! Ah! Alfred, why did I distrust you for
an instant?"

"Why, indeed! But you distrust me no longer--you have no more
misgivings?"

"No, none!"

"You will be no longer cold, no longer coy, dear Margaret--here in
the sweet evening, among these pleasant shades, love, alone, has
supremacy. Here, in the words of one of your favorites:--

"'Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god--'"

concluding this quotation, he would have taken her in his embrace--he
would have renewed those dangerous endearments which had already
proved so fatal; but she repulsed the offered tenderness, firmly,
but with gentleness.

"Margaret, you still doubt me," he exclaimed reproachfully.

"No, Alfred, I doubt you not. I believe you. I have only been too
ready and willing to believe you. Ah! have you not had sufficient
proof of this? Leave me the consciousness of virtue--the feeling
of strength still to assert it, now that my eyes are open to my
previous weakness."

"But there is no reason to be so cold. Remember you are mine by every
tie of the heart--another day will make you wholly mine. Surely,
there is no need for this frigid bearing. No, no! you doubt--you
do not believe me, Margaret!"

"If I did not believe you, Alfred Stevens," she answered gravely,
"my prayer would be for death, and I should find it. These woods
which have witnessed my fault should have witnessed my expiation.
The homes which have known me should know me no more."

The solemnity of her manner rather impressed him, but having no real
regard for her, he was unwilling to be baffled in his true desires.

"If you doubt me not--if you have faith in me, Margaret, why this
solemnity, this reserve? Prove to me, by your looks, by your actions,
by the dear glances, the sweet murmurs, and the fond embrace, what
these cold assurances do not say."

His hand rested on her neck. She gently raised and removed it.

"I have already proved to you my weakness. I will now prove my
strength. It is better so, Alfred. If I have won your love, let me
now command your esteem, or maintain what is left me of my own. Do
not be angry with me if I insist upon it. I am resolute now to be
worthy of you and of myself."

"Ah! you call this love?" said he bitterly. "If you ever loved,
indeed, Margaret--"

"If I ever loved--and have I given you no proofs?" she exclaimed
in a burst of passion; "all the proofs that a woman can give, short
of her blood; and that, Alfred Stevens--that too, I was prepared
to give, had you not promptly assured me of your faith."

She drew a small dagger from her sleeve, and bared it beneath his
glance.

"Think you I brought this without an object? No! Alfred Stevens--know
me better! I came here prepared to die, as well as a frail and
erring woman could be prepared. You disarmed the dagger. You subdued
the determination when you bid me live for you. In your faith, I
am willing to live. I believe you, and am resolved to make myself
worthy of your belief also. I have promised to be your wife, and
here before Heaven, I swear to be your faithful wife; but, until
then, you shall presume in no respect. Your lip shall not touch
mine; your arms shall not embrace me; you shall see, dear Alfred,
that, with my eyes once opened fully upon my own weakness, I have
acquired the most certain strength."

"Give me the dagger," he said.

She hesitated.

"You doubt me still?"

"No, no!" she exclaimed, handing him the weapon--"no, no! I do not
doubt you--I dare not. Doubt you, Alfred?--that were death, even
without the dagger!"

CHAPTER XXIX

BULL-PUPS IN TRAINING.

Alfred Stevens was sufficiently familiar with the sex to perceive
that Margaret Cooper was resolved. There was that in her look and
manner which convinced him that she was not now to be overcome.
There was no effort or constraint in either her looks or language.
The composure of assured strength was there. The discovery of
her weakness, which he had so unexpectedly made, had rendered her
vigilant. Suspecting herself--which women are not apt to do--she
became watchful, not only of the approach of her lover, but of
every emotion of her own soul; and it was with a degree of chagrin
which he could scarcely refrain from showing, that he was compelled
to forego, at least for the present, all his usual arts of seduction.

Yet he knew not how to refrain. Never had Margaret Cooper seemed
so lovely in his eyes, so commanding, so eloquent with beauty, as
now, when remorse had touched her eyes with an unwonted shadow,
and tears and nightwatching had subdued the richer bloom upon her
cheek. Proud still, but pensive in her pride, she walked silently
beside him, still brooding over thoughts which she would not
willingly admit were doubts, and grasping every word of assurance
that fell from his lips as if it had been some additional security.

These assurances he still suffered to escape him, with sufficient
frequency and solemnity, to confirm that feeling of confidence
which his promise of marriage had inspired in her mind. There was
a subdued fondness in his voice, and an EMPRESSMENT in his manner,
which was not all practice. The character which Margaret Cooper had
displayed in this last interview--her equal firmness and fear--the
noble elevation of soul which, admitting her own errors, disdained
to remind him of his--a course which would have been the most ready
of adoption among the weaker and less generous of the sex--had touched
him with a degree of respect akin to admiration; and so strong was
the impression made upon him of her great natural superiority of
mind to almost all the women he had ever met, that, but for her one
unhappy lapse, he had sought no other wife. Had she been strong at
first as she proved herself at last, this had been inevitable.

When in his own chamber that night, he could not help recalling to
his memory the proud elevation of her character as it had appeared
in that interview. The recollection really gave him pain, since
along with it arose the memory also of that unfortunate frailty,
which became more prominent as a crime in connection with that
intellectual merit which, it is erroneously assumed, should have
made it sure.

"But for that, Margaret Cooper, and this marriage were no vain
promise. But that forbids. No, no--no spousals for me: let John
Cross and the bride be ready or not, there shall be a party wanting
to that contract! And yet, what a woman to lose! what a woman to
win! No tragedy queen ever bore herself like that. Talk of Siddons,
indeed! SHE would have brought down the house in that sudden
prostration--that passionate appeal. She made even me tremble. I
could have loved her for that, if for that only. To make ME tremble!
and with such a look, such an eye, such a stern, sweet, fierce
beauty! By Heavens! I know not how to give her up. What a sensation
she would make in Frankfort! Were she my wife--but no, no! bait for
gudgeons! I am not so great a fool as that. She who is mine on my
terms, is yours, sir, or yours--is anybody's, when the humor suits
and the opportunity. I can not think of that. Yet, to lose her is
as little to be thought of. I must manage it. I must get her off
from this place. It need not be to Frankfort! Let me see--there
is--hum!--hum!--yes, a ride of a few miles--an afternoon
excursion--quite convenient, yet not too near. It must be managed;
but, at all events, I must evade this marriage--put it off for the
present--get some decent excuse. That's easy enough, and for the
rest, why, time that softens all things, except man and woman,
time will make that easy too. To-morrow for Ellisland, and the rest
after."

Thus, resolving not to keep his vows to his unhappy victim, the
criminal was yet devising plans by which to continue his power over
her. These plans, yet immature in his own mind, at least unexpressed,
need not be analyzed here, and may be conjectured by the reader.

That night, Stevens busied himself in preparing letters. Of these
he wrote several. It will not further our progress to look over
him as he writes; and we prefer rather, in this place, to hurry on
events which, it may be the complaint of all parties, reader not
omitted, have been too long suffered to stagnate. But we trust not.
Let us hurry Stevens through Friday night--the night of that last
interview.

Saturday morning, we observe that his appetite is unimpaired. He
discusses the breakfast at Hinkley's as if he had never heard of
suffering. He has said an unctuous grace. Biscuits hot, of best
Ohio flour, are smoking on his plate. A golden-looking mass of best
fresh butter is made to assimilate its luscious qualities with
those of the drier and hotter substance. A copious bowl of milk, new
from the dugs of old Brindle, stands beside him, patiently waiting
to be honored by his unscrupulous but not unfastidious taste. The
grace is said, and the gravy follows. He has a religious regard for
the goods and gifts of this life. He eats heartily, and the thanks
which follow, if not from the bottom of the soul, were sufficiently
earnest to have emanated from the bottom of his stomach.

This over, he has a chat with his hosts. He discusses with old
Hinkley the merits of the new lights. What these new lights were,
at that period, we do not pretend to remember. Among sectarians,
there are periodical new lights which singularly tend to increase
the moral darkness. From these, after a while, they passed to the
love festivals or feasts--a pleasant practice of the methodist
church, which is supposed to be very promotive of many other good
things besides love; though we are constrained to say that Brother
Stevens and Brother Hinkley--who, it may be remarked, had very long
and stubborn arguments, frequently without discovering, till they
reached the close, that they were thoroughly agreed in every respect
except in words--concurred in the opinion that there was no portion
of the church practice so highly conducive to the amalgamation of
soul with soul, and all souls with God, as this very practice of
love-feasts!

Being agreed on this and other subjects, Mr. Hinkley invited Brother
Stevens out to look at his turnips and potatoes; and when this
delicate inquiry was over, toward ten o'clock in the day, Brother
Stevens concluded that he must take a gallop; he was dyspeptic, felt
queerish, his studies were too close, his mind too busy with the
great concerns of salvation. These are enough to give one
dyspepsia. Of course, the hot rolls and mountains of volcanic
butter--steam-ejecting--could have produced no such evil effects upon
a laborer in the vineyard. At all events, a gallop was necessary,
and the horse was brought. Brother Hinkley and our matronly sister
of the same name watched the progress of the pious youth, as,
spurring up the hills, he pursued the usual route, taking at first
the broad highway leading to the eastern country.

There were other eyes that watched the departure of Brother
Stevens with no less interest, but of another kind, than those of
the venerable couple. Our excellent friend Calvert started up on
hearing the tread of the horse, and, looking out from his porch,
ascertained with some eagerness of glance that the rider was Alfred
Stevens.

Now, why was the interest of Calvert so much greater on this than
on any other previous occasion? We will tell you, gentle reader.
He had been roused at an early hour that morning by a visit from
Ned Hinkley.

"Gran'pa," was the reverent formula of our fisherman at beginning,
"to-day's the day. I'm pretty certain that Stevens will be riding
out to-day, for he missed the last Saturday. I'll take my chance
for it, therefore, and brush out ahead of him. I think I've got it
pretty straight now, the place that he goes to, and I'll see if I
can't get there soon enough to put myself in a comfortable fix, so
as to see what's a-going on and what he goes after. Now, gran'pa,
I'll tell you what I want from you--them pocket-pistols of your'n.
Bill Hinkley carried off grandad's, and there's none besides that
I can lay hold on."

"But, Ned, I'm afraid to lend them to you."

"What 'fraid of?"

"That you'll use them."

"To be sure I will, if there's any need, gran'pa. What do I get
them for?"

"Ah, yes! but I fear you'll find a necessity where there is none.
You'll be thrusting your head into some fray in which you may lose
your ears."

"By Jupiter, no! No, gran'pa, I'll wait for the necessity. I won't
look for it. I'm going straight ahead this time, and to one object
only. I think Stevens is a rascal, and I'm bent to find him out.
I've had no disposition to lick anybody but him, ever since he
drove Bill Hinkley off--you and him together."

"You'll promise me, Ned?"

"Sure as a snag in the forehead of a Mississippi steamer. Depend
upon me."

"But there must be no quarrelling with Stevens either, Ned."

"Look you, gran'pa, if I'm to quarrel with Stevens or anybody else,
'twouldn't be your pistols in my pocket that would make me set on,
and 'twouldn't be the want of 'em that would make me stop. When
it's my cue to fight, look you, I won't need any prompter, in the
shape of friend or pistol. Now THAT speech is from one of your
poets, pretty near, and ought to convince you that you may as well
lend the puppies and say no more about it. If you don't you'll only
compel me to carry my rifle, and that'll be something worse to an
enemy, and something heavier for me. Come, come, gran'pa, don't be
too scrupulous in your old age. YOUR HAVING them is a sufficient
excuse for MY HAVING them too. It shows that they ought to be had."

"You're logic-chopping this morning, Ned--see that you don't get
to man-chopping in the afternoon. You shall have the pistols, but
do not use them rashly. I have kept them simply for defence against
invasion; not for the purpose of quarrel, or revenge."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32