Charlemont

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"Whose instant touches, slightest pause,"

teach the approach of the smallest forms of danger, however
inoffensive their shapes, however unobtrusive their advance. When
the sensibilities are neglected and suffered to fall into disrepute,
they grow idle first, and finally obtuse! even as the limb which you
forbear to exercise loses its muscle, and withers into worthlessness.

When Alfred Stevens discovered this condition, his plan was simple
enough. He had only to stimulate her mind into bolder exercise--to
conduct it to topics of the utmost hardihood--to inspire that sort
of moral recklessness which some people call courage--which delights
to sport along the edge of the precipice, and to summon audacious
spirits from the great yawning gulfs which lie below. This practice
is always pursued at the expense of those guardian feelings which
keep watch over the virtues of the tender heart.

The analysis of subjects commonly forbidden to the sex, necessarily
tends to make dull those habitual sentinels over the female conduct.
These sentinels are instincts rather than principles. Education
can take them away, but does not often confer them. When, through
the arts of Alfred Stevens, Margaret Cooper was led to discuss,
perhaps to despise, those nice and seemingly purposeless barriers
which society--having the experience of ages for its authority--has
wisely set up between the sexes--she had already taken a large
stride toward passing them. But of this, which a judicious education
would have taught her, she was wholly ignorant. Her mind was too
bold to be scrupulous; too adventurous to be watchful; and if, at
any moment, a pause in her progress permitted her to think of the
probable danger to her sex of such adventurous freedom, she certainly
never apprehended it in her own case. Such restraints she conceived
to be essential only for the protection of THE WEAK among her sex.
Her vanity led her to believe that she was strong; and the approaches
of the sapper were conducted with too much caution, with a progress
too stealthy and insensible, to startle the ear or attract the
eye of the unobservant, yet keen-eyed guardian of her citadel. An
eagle perched upon a rock, with wing outspread for flight, and an
eye fixed upon the rolling clouds through which it means to dart,
is thus heedless of the coiled serpent which lies beneath its feet.

The bold eye of Margaret Cooper was thus heedless. Gazing upon the
sun, she saw not the serpent at her feet. It was not because she
slept: never was eye brighter, more far-stretching; never was mind
more busy, more active, than that of the victim at the very moment
when she fell. It was because she watched the remote, not the
near--the region in which there was no enemy, nothing but glory--and
neglected that post which is always in danger. Her error is that
of the general who expends his army upon some distant province,
leaving his chief city to the assault and sack of the invader.

We have dwelt somewhat longer upon the moral causes which, in our
story, have produced such cruel results, than the mere story itself
demands; but no story is perfectly moral unless the author, with a
wholesome commentary, directs the attention of the reader to the
true weaknesses of his hero, to the point where his character fails;
to the causes of this failure, and the modes in which it may be
repaired or prevented. In this way alone may the details of life
and society be properly welded together into consistent doctrine,
so that instruction may keep pace with delight, and the heart and
mind be informed without being conscious of any of those tasks
which accompany the lessons of experience.

To return now to our narrative.

Margaret Cooper lived! She might as well have died. This was HER
thought, at least. She prayed for death. Was it in mercy that her
prayer was denied? We shall see! Youth and a vigorous constitution
successfully resisted the attacks of the assailant. They finally
obtained the victory. After a weary spell of bondage and suffering,
she recovered. But she recovered only to the consciousness of a
new affliction. All the consequences of her fatal lapse from virtue
have not yet been told. She bore within her an indelible witness
of her shame. She was destined to be a mother without having been
a wife!

This, to her mother at least, was a more terrible discovery than the
former. She literally cowered and crouched beneath it. It was the
WRITTEN shame, rather than the actual, which the old woman dreaded.
She had been so vain, so criminally vain, of her daughter--she had
made her so constantly the subject of her brag--that, unwitting of
having declared the whole melancholy truth, in the first moment of
her madness, she shrank, with an unspeakable horror, from the idea
that the little world in which she lived should become familiar
with the whole cruel history of her overthrow. She could scarcely
believe it herself though the daughter, with an anguish in her eyes
that left little to be told, had herself revealed the truth. Her
pride as well as her life, was linked with the pride and the
beauty of her child. She had shared in her constant triumphs over
all around her; and overlooking, as a fond, foolish mother is apt
to do, all her faults of temper or of judgment, she had learned to
behold nothing but her superiority. And now to see her fallen! a
thing of scorn, which was lately a thing of beauty!--the despised,
which was lately the worshipped and the wondered at! No wonder that
her weak, vain heart was crushed and humbled, and her head bowed
in sorrow to the earth. She threw herself upon the floor, and wept
bitter and scalding tears.

The daughter had none. Without sob or sigh, she stooped down and
tenderly assisted the old woman to rise. Why had she no tears? She
asked herself this question, but in vain. Her external emotions
promised none. Indeed, she seemed to be without emotions. A weariness
and general indifference to all things was now the expression of
her features. But this was the deceitful aspect of the mountain,
on whose breast contemplation sits with silence, unconscious of the
tossing flame which within is secretly fusing the stubborn metal
and the rock. Anger was in her breast--feelings of hate mingled up
with shame--scorn of herself, scorn of all--feelings of defiance
and terror, striving at mastery; and, in one corner, a brooding
image of despair, kept from the brink of the precipice only by the
entreaties of some fiercer principle of hate. She felt life to be
insupportable. Why did she live? This question came to her repeatedly.
The demon was again at work beside her.

"Die!" said he. "It is but a blow--a moment's pang--the driving a
needle into an artery--the prick of a pin upon the heart. Die! it
will save you from exposure--the shame of bringing into the world
an heir of shame! What would you live for? The doors of love, and
fame, even of society, are shut against you for ever. What is life
to you now? a long denial--a protracted draught of bitterness--the
feeling of a death-spasm carried on through sleepless years; perhaps,
under a curse of peculiar bitterness, carried on even into age!
Die! you can not be so base as to wish for longer life!"

The arguments of the demon were imposing. His suggestions seemed
to promise the relief she sought. Hers seemed the particular case
where the prayer is justified which invokes the mountains and the
rocks upon the head of the guilty. But the rock refused to fall,
the mountain to cover her shame, and its exposure became daily
more and more certain. Death was the only mode of escape from the
mountain of pain which seemed to rest upon her heart. The means
of self-destruction were easy. With a spirit so impetuous as hers,
to imagine was to determine. She did determine. Yet, even while
making so terrible a resolve, a singular calm seemed to overspread
her soul. She complained of nothing--wished for nothing--sought
for nothing--trembled at nothing. A dreadful lethargy, which made
the old mother declaim as against a singular proof of hardihood,
possessed her spirit. Little did the still-idolizing mother conjecture
how much that lethargy concealed!

The moment that Margaret Cooper conceived the idea of suicide, it
possessed all her mind. It became the one only thought. There were
few arguments against it, and these she rapidly dismissed or overcame.
To leave her mother in her old age was the first which offered
itself; but this became a small consideration when she reflected
that the latter could not, under any circumstances, require her
assistance very long; and to spare her the shame of public exposure
was another consideration. The evils of the act to herself were
reduced with equal readiness to the transition from one state
to another by a small process, which, whether by the name of stab
or shot, was productive only of a momentary spasm; for, though as
fully persuaded of the soul's immortality as the best of us, the
unhappy girl, like all young free-thinkers, had persuaded herself
that, in dying by her own hands, she was simply exercising a
discretionary power under the conviction that her act in doing so
was rendered by circumstances a judicious one. The arguments by
which she deceived herself are sufficiently commonplace, and too
easy of refutation, to render necessary any discussion of them
here. Enough to state the fact. She deliberately resolved upon the
fatal deed which was to end her life and agony together, and save
her from that more notorious exposure which must follow the birth
of that child of sin whom she deemed it no more than a charity to
destroy.

There was an old pair of pistols in the house, which had been the
property of her father. She had often, with a boldness not common
to the sex, examined these pistols. They were of brass, well made,
of English manufacture, with common muzzles, and a groove for
a sight instead of the usual drop. They were not large, but, in
a practised hand, were good travelling-pistols, being capable of
bringing down a man at twelve paces, provided there was anything
like deliberation in the holder. Often and again had she handled
these weapons, poising them and addressing them at objects as
she had seen her father do. On one occasion she had been made to
discharge them, under his own instructions; she had done so without
terror. She recalled these events. She had seen the pistols loaded.
She did not exactly know what quantity of powder was necessary for a
charge, but she was in no mood to calculate the value of a thimbleful.

Availing herself of the temporary absence of her mother, she
possessed herself of these weapons. Along with them, in the same
drawer, she found a horn which still contained a certain quantity
of powder. There were bullets in the bag with the pistols which
precisely fitted them. There, too, was the mould--there were
flints--the stock was sufficiently ample for all her desires; and
she surveyed the prize, in her own room, with the look of one who
congratulates himself in the conviction that he holds in his hand
the great medicine which is to cure his disease. In her chamber
she loaded the weapons, and, with such resignation as belonged to
her philosophy, she waited for the propitious moment when she might
complete the deed.

CHAPTER XXXV.

FOLDING THE ROBES ABOUT HER.

It was the sabbath and a very lovely day. The sun never shone more
brightly in the heavens; and as Margaret Cooper surveyed its mellow
orange light, lying, like some blessed spirit, at sleep upon the
hills around her, and reflected that she was about to behold it
for the last time, her sense of its exceeding beauty became more
strong than ever. Now that she was about to lose it for ever, it
seemed more beautiful than it had ever been before.

This is a natural effect, which the affections confer upon the
objects which delight and employ them. Even a temporary privation
increases the loveliness of the external nature. How we linger
and look. That shade seems so inviting; that old oak so venerable!
That rock--how often have we sat upon it, evening and morning, and
mused strange, wild, sweet fancies! It is an effort to tear one's
self away--it is almost like tearing away from life itself; so
many living affections feel the rending and the straining--so many
fibres that have their roots in the heart, are torn and lacerated
by the separation.

Poor Margaret! she looked from her window upon the bright and
beautiful world around her. Strange that sorrow should dwell in
a world so bright and beautiful! Stranger still, that, dwelling
in such a world, it should not dwell there by sufferance only and
constraint! that it should have such sway--such privilege. That
it should invade every sanctuary and leave no home secure. Ah! but
the difference between mere sorrow and guilt! Poor Margaret could
not well understand that! If she could--but no! She was yet to learn
that the sorrows of the innocent have a healing effect. That they
produce a holy and ennobling strength, and a juster appreciation of
those evening shades of life which render the lights valuable and
make their uses pure. It is only guilt which finds life loathsome.
It is only guilt that sorrow weakens and enslaves. Virtue grows
strong beneath the pressure of her enemies, and with such a power
as was fabled of the king of Pontus, turns the most poisonous fruits
of earth into the most wholesome food.

But, even in the heart of Margaret Cooper, where the sense of the
beautiful was strong, the loveliness of the scene was felt. She
drank in, with strange satisfaction--a satisfaction to which she
had long been a stranger--its soft and inviting beauties. They
did not lessen her sense of suffering, perhaps, but they were not
without their effect in producing other moods, which, once taken
in company with the darker ones of the soul, may, in time, succeed
in alleviating them. Never, indeed, had the prospect been more
calm and wooing. Silence, bending from the hills, seemed to brood
above the valley even as some mighty spirit, at whose bidding strife
was hushed, and peace became the acknowledged divinity of all. The
humming voices of trade and merriment were all hushed in homage to
the holy day; and if the fitful song of a truant bird, that presumed
beside the window of Margaret Cooper, did break the silence of the
scene, it certainly did not disturb its calm. The forest minstrel
sung in a neighboring tree, and she half listened to his lay. The
strain seemed to sympathize with her sadness. She thought upon her
own songs, which had been of such a proud spirit; and how strange
and startling seemed the idea that with her, song would soon cease
for ever. The song of the bird would be silent in her ears, and
her own song! What song would be hers? What strain would she take
up? In what abode--before what altars?

This train of thought, which was not entirely lost, however, was
broken, for the time, by a very natural circumstance. A troop of the
village damsels came in sight, on their way to church. She forgot
the song of birds, as her morbid spirit suggested to her the probable
subject of their meditations.

"They have seen me," she muttered to herself as she hastily
darted from the window. "Ay, they exult. They point to me--me, the
abandoned--the desolate--soon to be the disgraced! But, no! no!
that shall never be. They shall never have that triumph, which is
always so grateful a subject of regale to the mean and envious!"

The voice of her mother from below disturbed these unhappy meditations.
The old lady was prepared for church, and was surprised to find
that Margaret had not made her toilet.

"What! don't you mean to go, Margaret?"

"Not to-day, mother."

"What, and the new preacher too, that takes the place of John Cross!
They say he makes a most heavenly prayer."

But the inducement of the heavenly prayer of the new preacher was
not enough for Margaret. The very suggestion of a new preacher would
have been conclusive against her compliance. The good old lady was
too eager herself to get under way to waste much time in exhortation,
and hurrying off, she scarcely gave herself time to answer the
inquiry of the widow Thackeray, at her own door, after the daughter's
health.

"I will go in and see her," said the lighthearted but truehearted
woman.

"Do, do, ma'am---if you please! She'll be glad to see you. I'll
hurry on, as I see Mrs. Hinkley just ahead."

The widow Thackeray looked after her with a smile, which was
exchanged for another of different character when she found herself
in the chamber of Margaret. She put her arms about the waist of
the sufferer; kissed her cheeks, and with the tenderest solicitude
spoke of her health and comfort. To her, alone, with the exception
of her mother--according to the belief of Margaret--her true
situation had been made known.

"Alas!" said she, "how should I feel--how should I be! You should
know. I am as one cursed--doomed, hopeless of anything but death."

"Ah! do not speak of death, Margaret," said the other kindly. "We
must all die, I know, but that does not reconcile me any more to
the thought. It brings always a creeping horror through my veins.
Think of life--talk of life only."

"They say that death is life."

"So it is, I believe, Margaret; and now I think of it, dress yourself
and go to church where we may hear something on this subject to
make us wiser and better. Come, my dear--let us go to God."

"I can not--not to-day, dear Mrs. Thackeray."

"Ah, Margaret, why not? It is to the church, of all places, you
should now go."

"What! to be stared at? To see the finger of scorn pointing at me
wherever I turn? To hear the whispered insinuation? To be conscious
only of sneer and sarcasm on every hand? No, no, dear Mrs. Thackeray,
I can not go for this. Feeling this, I should neither pray for
myself, nor find benefit from the prayers of others. Nay, THEY
would not pray. They would only mock."

"Margaret, these thoughts are very sinful."

"So they are, but I can not think of any better. They can not but
be sinful since they are mine."

But you are not wedded to sin, dearest. Such thoughts can give you
no pleasure. Come with me to church! Come and pray! Prayer will do
you good."

"I would rather pray here. Let me remain. I will try to go out
among the hills when you are all engaged in church, and will pray
there. Indeed I must. I must pray then and pray there, if prayer
is ever to do me good."

"The church is the better place, Margaret. One prays better where
one sees that all are praying."

"But when I KNOW that they are not praying! When I know that envy
is in their hearts, and malice, and jealousy and suspicion--that
God is not in their hearts, but their fellow; and not him with
friendly and fond, but with spiteful and deceitful thoughts!"

"Ah! Margaret, how can you know this? Judge not lest ye be judged."

"It matters not, dear Mrs. Thackeray. God is here, or there. He
will be among the hills if anywhere. I will seek him there. If I
can command my thoughts anywhere, it will be in the woods alone.
In the church I can not. Those who hate me are there--and their
looks of hate would only move my scorn and defiance."

"Margaret, you do our people wrong. You do yourself wrong. None
hate you--none will point to you, or think of your misfortune; and
if they did, it is only what you might expect, and what you must
learn patiently to bear, as a part of the punishment which God
inflicts on sin. You must submit, Margaret, to the shame as you
have submitted to the sin. It is by submission only that you can
be made strong. The burden which you are prepared to bear meekly,
becomes light to the willing spirit. Come, dear Margaret, I will
keep with you, sit by you--show you, and all, that I forget your
sin and remember only your suffering."

The good widow spoke with the kindest tones. She threw her
arms around the neck of the desolate one, and kissed her with the
affection of a sister. But the demon of pride was uppermost. She
withstood entreaty and embrace.

"I can not go with you. I thank you, truly thank you, dear Mrs.
Thackeray, but I can not go. I have neither the courage nor the
strength."

"They will come--the courage and the strength--only try. God is
watchful to give us help the moment he sees that we really seek
his assistance. By prayer, Margaret--"

"I will pray, but I must pray alone. Among the hills I will pray.
My prayer will not be less acceptable offered among his hills. My
voice will not remain unheard, though no chorus swells its appeal."

"Margaret, this is pride."

"Perhaps!"

"Ah! go with me, and pray for humility."

"My prayer would rather be for death."

"Say not so, Margaret--this is impiety."

"Ay, death!--the peace, the quiet of the grave--of a long sleep--an
endless sleep--where the vulture may no longer gnaw the heart, nor
the fire burn within the brain! For these I must pray."

And, thus speaking, the unhappy woman smote her throbbing head with
violent hand.

"Shocking thought! But you do not believe in such a sleep? Surely,
Margaret, you believe in life eternal?"

"Would I did not!"

"O Margaret!--but you are sick; you are very feverish. Your eyeballs
glare like coals of fire; your face seems charged with blood. I am
afraid you are going to have another attack, like the last."

"Be not afraid. I have no such fear."

"I will sit with you, at least," said the kind-hearted woman.

"Nay, that I must positively forbid, Mrs. Thackeray; I will not
suffer it. I will not sit with YOU. Go you to church. You will
be late. Do not waste your time on me. I mean to ramble among the
hills this morning. THAT, I think, will do me more good than anything
else. There, I am sure--there only--I will find peace."

The worthy widow shook her head doubtfully.

"But I am sure of it," said Margaret. "You will see. Peace, peace--the
repose of the heart--the slumber of the brain!--I shall find all
there!"

Mrs. Thackeray, finding her inflexible, rose to depart, but with
some irresoluteness.

"If you would let me walk with you, Margaret--"

"No! no!--dear Mrs. Thackeray--I thank you very much; but, with a
mood such as mine, I shall be much better alone."

"Well, if you are resolved--"

"I am resolved! never more so."

These words were spoken in tones which might have startled a
suspicious mind. But the widow was none.

"God bless you!" she said, kissing her at parting." I will see you
when I come from church."

"Will you?" said Margaret, with a significant but sad smile. Then,
suddenly rising, she exclaimed:--

"Let me kiss you, dear Mrs. Thackeray, and thank you again, before
you go. You have been very kind to me, very kind, and you have my
thanks and gratitude."

Mrs. Thackeray was touched by her manner. This was the first time
that the proud spirit of Margaret Cooper had ever offered such an
acknowledgment. It was one that the gentle and unremitting kindnesses
of the widow amply deserved. After renewing her promise to call on
her return from church, Mrs. Thackeray took her departure.

Margaret Cooper was once more alone. When she heard the outer door
shut, she then threw herself upon the bed, and gave way to the
utterance of those emotions which, long restrained, had rendered
her mind a terrible anarchy. A few tears, but very few, were wrung
from her eyes; but she groaned audibly, and a rapid succession of
shivering-fits passed through her frame, racking the whole nervous
system, until she scarcely found herself able to rise from the
couch where she had thrown herself. A strong, determined will alone
moved her, and she rose, after a lapse of half an hour, to the
further prosecution of her purpose. Her temporary weakness and
suffering of frame had no effect upon her resolves. She rather seemed
to be strengthened in them. This strength enabled her to sit down
and dictate a letter to her mother, declaring her intention, and
justifying it by such arguments as were presented by the ingenious
demon who assists always in the councils of the erring heart.

She placed this letter in her bosom, that it might be found upon
her person. It was curious to observe, next, that she proceeded
to tasks which were scarcely in unison with the dreadful deed she
meditated. She put her chamber in nice order. Her books, of which
she had a tolerably handsome collection for a private library in
our forest-country, she arranged and properly classed upon their
shelves. Then she made her toilet with unusual care. It was for the
last time. She gazed upon the mirror, and beheld her own beauties
with a shudder.

"Ah!" she thought, though she gave no expression to the thought,
"to be so beautiful, yet fail!"

It was a reflection to touch any heart with sorrow. Her dress was
of plain white; she wore no ornament--not even a riband. Her hair,
which was beautifully long and thick, was disposed in a clubbed
mass upon her head, very simply but with particular neatness; and,
when all was done, concealing the weapon of death beneath a shawl
which she wrapped around her, she left the house, and stole away
unobserved along the hills, in the seclusion and sacred silence
of which she sought to avoid the evil consequences of one crime by
the commission of another far more heinous.

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