Charlemont

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"He will not come," it said; "you look in vain. The girls follow
your eyes; they behold your disappointment; they laugh at your
credulity. If he leads any to the altar, think you it will be one
whom he could command at pleasure without any such conditions--one
who, in her wild passions and disordered vanity, could so readily
yield to his desires, without demanding any corresponding sacrifices?
Margaret, they laugh now at those weaknesses of a mind which they
once feared if not honored. They wonder, now, that they could have
been so deceived. If they do not laugh aloud, Margaret, it is because
they would spare your shame. Indeed, indeed, they pity you!"

The head of the desperate, but still haughty woman, was now more
proudly uplifted, and her eyes shot forth yet fiercer fires of
indignation. What a conflict was going on in her bosom. Her cheeks
glowed with the strife--her breast heaved; with difficulty she
maintained her seat inflexibly, and continued, without other signs
of discomposure, until the service was concluded. Her step was more
stately than ever as she walked from church; and while her mother
lingered behind to talk with Brother Cross, and to exchange the
sweetest speeches with the widow Thackeray and others, she went on
alone--seeing none, heeding none--dreading to meet any face lest
it should wear a smile and look the language in which the demon at
her side still dealt. HE still clung to her, with the tenacity of
a fiendish purpose. He mocked her with her shame, goading her, with
dart upon dart, of every sort of mockery. Truly did he mutter in
her ears:--

"Stevens has abandoned you. Never was child, before yourself, so
silly as to believe such a promise as he made you. Do you doubt?--do
you still hope? It is madness? Why came he not yesterday--last
night--to-day? He is gone. He has abandoned you. You are not only
alone--you are lost! lost for ever!"

The tidings of this unsolicited attendant were confirmed the next
day, by the unsuspecting John Cross. He came to visit Mrs. Cooper and
her daughter among the first of his parishioners. He had gathered
from the villagers already that Stevens had certainly favored
Miss Cooper beyond all the rest of the village damsels. Indeed, it
was now generally bruited that he was engaged to her in marriage.
Though the worthy preacher had very stoutly resisted the suggestions
of Mr. Calvert, and the story of Ned Hinkley, he was yet a little
annoyed by them; and he fancied that, if Stevens were, indeed,
engaged to Margaret, she, or perhaps the old lady, might relieve
his anxiety by accounting for the absence of his protege. The notion
of Brother John was, that, having resolved to marry the maiden,
he had naturally gone home to apprize his parents and to make the
necessary preparations.

But this conjecture brought with it a new anxiety. It, now, for
the first time, seemed something strange that Stevens had never
declared to himself, or to anybody else who his parents were--what
they were--where they were--what business they pursued; or anything
about them. Of his friends, they knew as little. The simple old
man had never thought of these things, until the propriety of such
inquiries was forced upon him by the conviction that they would
now be made in vain. The inability to answer them, when it was
necessary that an answer should be found, was a commentary upon
his imprudence which startled the good old man not a little. But,
in the confident hope that a solution of the difficulty could
be afforded by the sweetheart or the mother, he proceeded to her
cottage. Of course, Calvert, in his communication to him, had forborne
those darker conjectures which he could not help but entertain;
and his simple auditor, unconscious himself of any thought of evil,
had never himself formed any such suspicions.

Margaret Cooper was in her chamber when Brother Cross arrived. She
had lost that elasticity of temper which would have carried her
out at that period among the hills in long rambles, led by those
wild, wooing companions, which gambol along the paths of poetic
contemplation. The old man opened his stores of scandal to Mrs.
Cooper with little or no hesitation. He told her all that Calvert
had said, all that Ned Hinkley had fancied himself to have heard,
and all the village tattle touching the engagement supposed to
exist between Stevens and her daughter.

"Of course, Sister Cooper," said he, "I believe nothing of this
sort against the youth. I should be sorry to think it of one whom
I plucked as a brand from the burning. I hold Brother Stevens to be
a wise young man and a pious; and truly I fear, as indeed I learn,
that there is in the mind of Ned Hinkley a bitter dislike to the
youth, because of some quarrel which Brother Stevens is said to
have had with William Hinkley. This dislike hath made him conceive
evil things of Brother Stevens and to misunderstand and to pervert
some conversation which he hath overheard which Stevens hath had
with his companion. Truly, indeed, I think that Alfred Stevens is
a worthy youth of whom we shall hear a good account."

"And I think so too, Brother Cross. Brother Stevens will be yet a
burning and a shining light in the church. There is a malice against
him; and I think I know the cause, Brother Cross."

"Ah! this will be a light unto our footsteps, Sister Cooper."

"Thou knowest, Brother Cross," resumed the old lady in a subdued
tone but with a loftier elevation of eyebrows and head--"thou
knowest the great beauty of my daughter Margaret?"

"The maiden is comely, sister, comely among the maidens; but beauty
is grass. It is a flower which blooms at morning and is cut down
in the evening. It withereth on the stalk where it bloomed, until
men turn from it with sickening and with sorrow, remembering what
it hath been. Be not boastful of thy daughter's beauty, Sister
Cooper, it is the beauty of goodness alone which dieth not."

"But said I not, Brother Cross, of her wisdom, and her wit, as
well as her beauty?" replied the old lady with some little pique.
"I was forgetful of much, if I spoke only of the beauty of person
which Margaret Cooper surely possesseth, and which the eyes of
blindness itself might see."

"Dross, dross all, Sister Cooper. The wit of man is a flash which
blindeth and maketh dark; and the wisdom of man is a vain thing.
The one crackleth like thorns beneath the pot--the other stifleth
the heart and keepeth down the soul from her true flight. I count
the wit and wisdom of thy daughter even as I count her beauty. She
hath all, I think--as they are known to and regarded by men. But
all is nothing. Beauty hath a day's life like the butterfly; wit
shineth like the sudden flash of the lightning, leaving only the
cloud behind it; and oh! for the vain wisdom of man which makes
him vain and unsteady--likely to falter--liable to fall--rash in
his judgment--erring in his aims--blind to his duty--wilful in his
weakness--insolent to his fellow--presumptuous in the sight of
God. Talk not to me of worldly wisdom. It is the foe to prayer and
meekness. The very fruit of the tree which brought sin and death
into the world. Thy daughter is fair to behold--very fair among the
maidens of our flock--none fairer, none so fair: God hath otherwise
blessed her with a bright mind and a quick intelligence; but I think
not that she is wise to salvation. No, no! she hath not yearned
to the holy places of the tabernacle, unless it be that Brother
Stevens hath been more blessed in his ministry than I!"

"And he hath!" exclaimed the mother. "I tell you, Brother John, the
heart of Margaret Cooper is no longer what it was. It is softened.
The toils of Brother Stevens have not been in vain. Blessed young
man, no wonder they hate and defame him. He hath had a power over
Margaret Cooper such as man never had before; and it is for this
reason that Bill Hinkley and Ned conspired against him, first to
take his life, and then to speak evil of his deeds. They beheld
the beauty of my daughter, and they looked on her with famishing
eyes. She sent them a-packing, I tell you. But this youth, Brother
Stevens, found favor in her heart. They beheld the two as they
went forth together. Ah! Brother John, it is the sweetest sight to
behold two young, loving people walk forth in amity--born, as it
would seem, for each other; both so tall, and young, and handsome;
walking together with such smiles, as if there was no sorrow in
the world; as if there was nothing but flowers and sweetness on
the path; as if they could see nothing but one another; and as if
there were no enemies looking on. It did my heart good to see them,
Brother Cross; they always looked so happy with one another."

"And you think, Sister Cooper, that Brother Stevens hath agreed to
take Margaret to wife?"

"She hath not told me this yet, but in truth, I think it hath very
nigh come to that."

"Where is she?"

"In her chamber."

"Call her hither, Sister Cooper; let us ask of her the truth."

Margaret Cooper was summoned, and descended with slow steps and an
unwilling spirit to meet their visiter.

"Daughter," said the good old man, taking her hand, and leading her
to a seat, "thou art, even as thy mother sayest, one of exceeding
beauty. Few damsels have ever met mine eyes with a beauty like to
thine. No wonder the young men look on thee with eyes of love; but
let not the love of youth betray thee. The love of God is the only
love that is precious to the heart of wisdom."

Thus saying, the old man gazed on her with as much admiration as
was consistent with the natural coldness of his temperament, his
years, and his profession. His address, so different from usual,
had a soothing effect upon her. A sigh escaped her, but she said
nothing. He then proceeded to renew the history which had been given
to him and which he had already detailed to her mother. She heard
him with patience, in spite of all his interpolations from Scripture,
his ejaculations, his running commentary upon the narrative, and the
numerous suggestive topics which took him from episode to episode,
until the story seemed interminably mixed up in the digression.

But when he came to that portion which related to the adventure of
Ned Hinkley, to his espionage, the conference of Stevens with his
companion--then she started--then her breathing became suspended,
then quickened--then again suspended--and then, so rapid in its
rush, that her emotion became almost too much for her powers of
suppression.

But she did suppress it, with a power, a resolution, not often
paralleled among men--still more seldom among women. After the first
spasmodic acknowledgment given by her surprise, she listened with
comparative calmness. She, alone, had the key to that conversation.
She, alone, knew its terrible signification. She knew that Ned
Hinkley was honest--was to be believed--that he was too simple,
and too sincere, for any such invention; and, sitting with hands
clasped upon that chair--the only attitude which expressed the
intense emotion which she felt--she gazed with unembarrassed eye
upon the face of the speaker, while every word which he spoke went
like some keen, death-giving instrument into her heart.

The whole dreadful history of the villany of Stevens, her irreparable
ruin--was now clearly intelligible. The mocking devil at her elbow
had spoken nothing but the truth. She was indeed the poor victim
of a crafty villain. In the day of her strength and glory she had
fallen--fallen, fallen, fallen!

"Why am I called to hear this?" she demanded with singular composure.

The old man and the mother explained in the same breath--that she
might reveal the degree of intercourse which had taken place between
them, and, if possible, account for the absence of her lover. That,
in short, she might refute the malice of enemies and establish the
falsehood of their suggestions.

"You wish to know if I believe this story of Ned Hinkley?"

"Even so, my daughter."

"Then, I do!"

"Ha! what is it you say, Margaret?"

"The truth."

"What?" demanded the preacher, "you can not surely mean that Brother
Stevens hath been a wolf in sheep's clothing--that he hath been a
hypocrite."

"Alas!" thought Margaret Cooper--"have I not been my own worst
enemy--did I not know him to be this from the first?"

Her secret reflection remained, however, unspoken. She answered
the demand of John Cross without a moment's hesitation.

"I believe that Alfred Stevens is all that he is charged to be--a
hypocrite--a wolf in sheep's clothing!--I see no reason to doubt
the story of Ned Hinkley. He is an honest youth."

The old lady was in consternation. The preacher aghast and confounded.

"Tell me, Margaret," said the former, "hath he not engaged himself
to you? Did he not promise--is he not sworn to be your husband?"

"I have already given you my belief. I see no reason to say
anything more. What more do you need? Is he not gone--fled--has he
not failed--"

She paused abruptly, while a purple flush went over her face. She
rose to retire.

"Margaret!" exclaimed the mother.

"My daughter!" said John Cross.

"Speak out what you know--tell us all--"

"No! I will say no more. You know enough already. I tell you, I
believe Alfred Stevens to be a hypocrite and a villain. Is not that
enough? What is it to you whether he is so or not? What is it to
me, at least? You do not suppose that it is anything to me? Why
should you? What should he be? I tell you he is nothing to
me--nothing--nothing--nothing! Villain or hypocrite, or what not--he
is no more to me than the earth on which I tread. Let me hear no
more about him, I pray you. I would not hear his name! Are there
not villains enough in the world, that you should think and speak
of one only?"

With these vehement words she left the room, and hurried to her
chamber. She stopped suddenly before the mirror.

"And is it thus!" she exclaimed--"and I am--"

The mother by this time had followed her into the room.

"What is the meaning of this, Margaret?--tell me!" cried the old
woman in the wildest agitation.

"What should it be, mother? Look at me!--in my eyes--do they not
tell you? Can you not read?"

"I see nothing--I do not understand you, Margaret."

"Indeed! but you shall understand me! I thought my face would tell
you without my words. _I_ see it there, legible enough, to myself.
Look again!--spare me if you can--spare your own ears the necessity
of hearing me speak!"

"You terrify me, Margaret--I fear you are out of your mind.

"No! no! that need not be your fear; nor, were it true, would it
be a fear of mine. It might be something to hope--to pray for. It
might bring relief. Hear me, since you will not see. You ask me
why I believe Stevens to be a villain. I KNOW it."

"Ha! how know it!"

"How! How should I know it? Well, I see that I must speak. Listen
then. You bade me seek and make a conquest of him, did you not? Do
not deny it, mother--you did."

"Well, if I did?"

"I succeeded! Without trying, I succeeded! He declared to me his
love--he did!--he promised to marry me. He was to have married me
yesterday--to have met me in church and married me. John Cross was
to have performed the ceremony. Well! you saw me there--you saw
me in white--the dress of a bride!--Did he come? Did you see him
there? Did you see the ceremony performed?"

"No, surely not--you know without asking."

"I know without asking!--surely I do!--but look you, mother--do you
think that conquests are to be made, hearts won, loves confessed,
pledges given, marriage-day fixed--do these things take place,
as matters of pure form? Is there no sensation--no agitation--no
beating and violence about the heart--in the blood--in the brain!
I tell you there is--a blinding violence, a wild, stormy, sensation
--fondness, forgetfulness, madness! I say, madness! madness!
madness!"

"Oh, my daughter, what can all this mean? Speak calmly, be deliberate!"

"Calm! deliberate! What a monster if I could be! But I am not
mad now. I will tell you what it means. It means that, in taking
captive Alfred Stevens--in winning a lover--securing that pious
young man--there was some difficulty, some peril. Would you believe
it?--there were some privileges which he claimed. He took me in his
arms. Ha! ha! He held me panting to his breast. His mouth filled
mine with kisses--"

"No more, do not say more, my child!"

"Ay, more! more! much more! I tell you--then came blindness and
madness, and I was dishonored--made a woman before I was made a
wife! Ruined, lost, abused, despised, abandoned! Ha! ha! ha! no
marriage ceremony. Though I went to the church. No bridegroom there,
though he promised to come. Preacher, church, bride, all present,
yet no wedding. Ha! ha! ha! How do I know!--Good reason for it,
good reason--Ha! ha!--ah!"

The paroxysm, terminated in a convulsion. The unhappy girl fell
to the floor as if stricken in the forehead. The blood gushed from
her mouth and nostrils, and she lay insensible in the presence of
the terrified and miserable mother.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE FATES FIND THE DAGGER AND THE BOWL.

For a long time she lay without showing any signs of life. Her
passions rebelled against the restraint which her mind had endeavored
to put upon them. Their concentrated force breaking all bonds, so
suddenly, was like the terrific outburst of the boiling lava from
the gorges of the frozen mountain. Believing her dead, the mother
rushed headlong into the highway, rending the village with her
screams. She was for the time a perfect madwoman. The neighbors
gathered to her assistance. That much-abused woman, the widow
Thackeray, was the first to come. Never was woman's tenderness
more remarkable than hers--never was woman's watch by the bed of
sickness and suffering--that watch which woman alone knows so well
how to keep--more rigidly maintained than by her! From the first
hour of that agony under which Margaret Cooper fell to earth
insensible, to the last moment in which her recovery was doubtful,
that widow Thackeray--whose passion for a husband had been described
by Mrs. Cooper as so very decided and evident--maintained her place
by the sick bed of the stricken girl with all the affection of a
mother. Widow Thackeray was a woman who could laugh merrily, but
she could shed tears with equal readiness. These were equally the
signs of prompt feeling and nice susceptibility; and the proud Margaret,
and her invidious mother, were both humbled by that spontaneous
kindness for which, hitherto, they had given the possessor so
very little credit, and to which they were now equally so greatly
indebted.

Medical attendance was promptly secured. Charlemont had a very
clever physician of the old school. He combined as was requisite
in the forest region of our country, the distinct offices of the
surgeon and mediciner. He was tolerably skilful in both departments.
He found his patient in a condition of considerable peril. She had
broken a blood-vessel; and the nicest care and closest attendance
were necessary to her preservation. It will not need that we should
go through the long and weary details which followed to her final
cure. Enough, that she did recover. But for weeks her chance was
doubtful. She lay for that space of time, equally in the arms of
life and death. For a long period, she herself was unconscious of
her situation.

When she came to know, the skill of her attendants derived very
little aid from her consciousness. Her mind was unfavorable to her
cure; and this, by the way, is a very important particular in the
fortunes of the sick. To despond, to have a weariness of life,
to forbear hope as well as exertion, is, a hundred to one, to
determine against the skill of the physician. Margaret Cooper felt
a willingness to die. She felt her overthrow in the keenest pangs
of its shame; and, unhappily, the mother, in her madness, had
declared it.

The story of her fall--of the triumph of the serpent--was now the
village property, and of course put an end to all further doubts
on the score of the piety of Brother Stevens; though, by way of
qualification of his offence, old Hinkley insisted that it was the
fault of the poor damsel.

"She," he said, "had tempted him--had thrown herself in his way--had
been brazen," and all that, of which so much is commonly said in
all similar cases. We, who know the character of the parties, and
have traced events from the beginning, very well know how little
of this is true. Poor Margaret was a victim before she was well
aware of those passions which made her so. She was the victim not
of lust but of ambition. Never was woman more unsophisticated--less
moved by unworthy and sinister design. She had her weaknesses--her
pride, her vanity; and her passions, which were tremendous, worked
upon through these, very soon effected her undoing. But, for
deliberate purpose of evil--of any evil of which her own intellect
was conscious--the angels were not more innocent.

But mere innocence of evil design, in any one particular condition,
is not enough for security. We are not only to forbear evil; virtue
requires that we should be exercised for the purposes of good. She
lacked the moral strength which such exercises, constantly pursued,
would have assured her. She was a creature of impulse only, not of
reflection. Besides, she was ignorant of her particular weaknesses.
She was weak where she thought herself strong. This is always the
error of a person having a very decided will. The will is constantly
mistaken for the power. She could not humble herself, and in her
own personal capacities--capacities which had never before been
subjected to any ordeal-trial--she relied for the force which was
to sustain her in every situation. Fancy a confident country-girl--supreme
in her own district over the Hobs and Hinnies thereabouts--in
conflict with the adroit man of the world, and you have the whole
history of Margaret Cooper, and the secret of her misfortune. Let
the girl have what natural talent you please, and the case is by no
means altered. She must fall if she seeks or permits the conflict.
She can only escape by flight. It is in consideration of this
human weakness, that we pray God, nightly, not to suffer us to be
exposed to temptation.

When the personal resources of her own experience and mind failed
Margaret Cooper, as at some time or other they must fail all who
trust only in them, she had no further reliance. She had never
learned to draw equal strength and consolation from the sweet
counsels of the sacred volume. Regarding the wild raving and the
senseless insanity, which are but too frequently the language of
the vulgar preacher, as gross ignorance and debasing folly, she
committed the unhappy error of confounding the preacher with his
cause. She had never been taught to make an habitual reference to
religion; and her own experience of life, had never forced upon
her those sage reflections which would have shown her that TRUE
religion is the very all of life, and without it life has nothing.
The humility of the psalmist, which was the real source of all the
strength allotted to the monarch minstrel, was an unread lesson
with her; and never having been tutored to refer to God, and relying
upon her own proud mind and daring imagination, what wonder that
these frail reeds should pierce her side while giving way beneath
her.

It was this very confidence in her own strength--this fearlessness
of danger (and we repeat the lesson here, emphatically, by way of
warning)--a confidence which the possession of a quick and powerful
mind naturally enough inspires--that effected her undoing. It was
not by the force of her affections that she fell. THE AFFECTIONS
ARE NOT APT TO BE STRONG IN A WOMAN WHOSE MIND LEADS HER OUT FROM
HER SEX!

The seducer triumphed through the medium of her vanity. Her
feeling of self-assurance had been thus active from childhood, and
conspicuous in all her sports and employments. SHE HAD NEVER BEEN
A CHILD HERSELF. SHE LED ALWAYS IN THE PASTIMES OF HER PLAYMATES,
MANY OF WHOM WERE OLDER THAN HERSELF.

She had no fears when others trembled; and, if she did not, at any
time, so far transcend the bounds of filial duty as to defy the
counsels of her parents, it was certainly no less true that she
never sought for, and seldom seemed to need them. IT IS DANGEROUS
WHEN THE WOMAN, THROUGH SHEER CONFIDENCE IN HER OWN STRENGTH, VENTURES
UPON THE VERGE OF THE MORAL PRECIPICE. THEY VERY EXPERIMENTAL,
WHERE THE PASSIONS ARE CONCERNED, PROVES HER TO BE LOST.

Margaret Cooper, confident in her own footsteps, soon learned to
despise every sort of guardianship. The vanity of her mother had
not only counselled and stimulated her own, but was of that gross
and silly order, as to make itself offensive to the judgment of the
girl herself. This had the effect of losing her all the authority
of a parent; and we have already seen, in the few instances where
this authority took the shape of counsel, that its tendency was to
evil rather than to good.

The arts of Alfred Stevens had, in reality, been very few. It was
only necessary that he should read the character of his victim.
This, as an experienced worldling--experienced in such a volume--he
was soon very able to do. He saw enough to discover, that, while
Margaret Cooper was endowed by nature with an extraordinary measure
of intellect, she was really weak because of its possession. In
due proportion to the degree of exercise to which she subjected
her mere mind--making that busy and restless--was the neglect of
her sensibilities--those nice ANTENNAE OF THE HEART.

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