The grand ball at Abbie"s was still in progress, though showing signs of approaching dissolution, when Bressant entered the house quietly at a side-door, and crept up to his room. He wished not to be seen or heard by anybody; but it happened that Abbie saw him, and the sight partly alarmed and partly relieved her. She could now account for the mysterious disappearance of Cornelia some hours before. But why had Bressant returned so secretly? and why were his movements all so surrept.i.tious? Something must be out of order, either at the Parsonage or elsewhere. She reflected and conjectured, and of course became momentarily more and more uneasy. Nor did a short visit to his door relieve her apprehensions: a confused and non-descript sound had proceeded from within, as if the young man were packing up. Whither could he be going, she asked herself, on the very eve of his marriage?
It is never difficult to find cause for anxiety; but it seemed to Abbie that the misgivings she entertained were reasonable and logical.
Bressant had made up his mind to desert Sophie, because the fortune which he had all his life considered his own turned out to belong to another, on whose generosity he was too proud or too suspicious to depend. He was going off, either to struggle through poverty to a fortune of his own making, or, giving himself up to his misfortune, to remain all his life in want and misery; or, perhaps--Abbie did not openly admit this alternative, but still, knowing what she thought she did of his nature and the circ.u.mstances, the suspicion had existence--perhaps, in conjunction with a certain evil-disposed person in New York, he contemplated fraudulently absconding.
Now, Abbie imagined that the key whereby alone all these difficulties could be unlocked, lay in her own hands. It was a key of which, so long as her own interest alone had been concerned, she had refused to avail herself; but, when the welfare of those she loved was called into question, she made up her mind (in spite of pride--her strongest pa.s.sion next to love) to make use of it without hesitation.
When the last guests had taken their departure, Abbie went to her room, and looked at herself in the gla.s.s, by the light of a kerosene-lamp. She was dressed plainly, though becomingly enough, in black silk; a lace cap rested on her gray hair; her face was worn and wrinkled, but had a fine expression about it, that would have recalled former beauty to the memory of any one who had known her in early life. She was deeply excited, without being at all nervous, the excitement being so profoundly rooted as to be really a part of herself.
"Why am I happy?" she asked herself. "No, not because I"ve buried all my pride. Because I"ve found a reason to justify me in burying it: that"s why!"
She went, for the third time that night, to Bressant"s door, and this time turned the latch and pushed it open. He was sitting at his table, with his head on his arms. His trunk and a large iron-bound box lay packed and strapped beneath the window, which was thrown wide open. The rush of air between that and the door roused the young man: he got slowly to his feet, and came forward.
"I don"t want to see you," said he, with a heavy utterance. "I warn you to go away. You and I had better have nothing to say to each other."
"We must; the time to speak has come!" she returned. "I"ve come to you, because you could not bring yourself to rely on me. It"s your own want of faith--"
"You"d better not go on," interrupted Bressant, with a strange smile. "I had more faith than you imagine. But there are some mountains that faith can"t move."
"Why do you still keep me off?" cried Abbie, in a tone which might have made his heart bleed, except that of late it had been stabbed so often.
"Good G.o.d! am I so repulsive to you that, for the sake of being happy and comfortable all your life, you can"t bring yourself to recognize my existence? Don"t imagine I want to buy your love or toleration with this money of mine. I want nothing in exchange--nothing! I can"t help the knowledge that I shall have made you rich, and so put happiness in your power; but I ask no acknowledgment--no return. Take every thing and go!
Leave me here and believe that I am dead! Is that enough?"
"A great deal too much! You"ll be sorry you"ve said all this. If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn"t have said a word of it."
"Oh, you are hard to please, indeed!" exclaimed Abbie, gazing at him and shuddering. "I pray G.o.d your heart is so cold to no one else as to me!
Poor Sophie! She would die at one such word."
"Don"t speak her name," said Bressant, in a tone so stern as to be equivalent to a threat.
He held his eyes down, so that the ugly gleam in them was hidden. Abbie had no thought of fearing him as yet, and she would have her say.
"Do you think I don"t know you"re going to leave her? If it"s because you don"t love her, I can say no more. You are beyond any help in this world. But if you do, let me save her, even if I must oblige you in doing it! You know little of her love, though, if you think she can be happier with you rich than poor. Oh! are you so cold yourself as to believe you are acting generously to her in this? Go back to her, or she will die!"
The old woman took fire as she spoke, and many of the signs of age were for the time obliterated. Some of the power and brilliancy of her youth shone again in her eyes; her form seemed to acquire a different and statelier contour. In the earnestness of her speech, involuntary gestures accompanied her words; free from all exaggeration, and so truly and gracefully fitted to her meaning as to be virtually invisible. But Bressant was not won by it: his expression grew more ugly and repellent with every successive sentence.
"You fool!" said he, coming one heavy step nearer, and frowning down upon her; "I warned you away; I told you to be silent. You"ve meddled with what was no concern of yours; you"ve thrust yourself where you had no right to come--"
"No right!" she interrupted, with an intensity of indignant emphasis that seemed adequate to smite to the ground the towering figure that faced her. Then, clasping her hands, and in a voice of yearning, ineffable tenderness, she added, "Oh, I have prayed for you, and wept for you, and loved you so! For your own sake, my darling, do not use such words to me!" Here she held out her arms, and tears ran hot down her faded cheeks. "Am I not your mother? Are you not my son?"
"No!" answered Bressant.
He threw so tremendous a weight of malignant energy into the utterance of this single word, although not raising his voice higher than his usual tone, that the moral effect upon the woman was as if he had dealt her a furious blow on the breast. Completely stunned at first, she stood as if dead, except that her body, upright and rigid, vibrated slightly from side to side, like a column about to fall. So sudden, too, had been the shock, that her arms still remained outstretched, and the track of her tears still glistened upon her cheeks, tears shed so utterly in vain as to acquire a trait of ghastly absurdity.
As sense and reflection began to dawn again, the first instinctive defence she attempted was that of incredulity. It was to gain breathing-s.p.a.ce rather than from any hope in its efficacy. But afterward, following the ability to hear and the capacity to comprehend, the grim reality settled darkly down. Her life for the last twenty-five years, then, had been a miserable blunder; her love, hopes, and fears wasted, and turned to ridicule; her self-sacrifice, a wretched self-deception, a throwing of all possibilities of happiness into the bottomless pit, whence no return could ever come to her; every thought, aspiration, and desire, which had visited her heart had been a mockery--meaningless and empty. This was the reality to which she was awakened. And, lest this should not be sufficient, here stood one before whom she had abased and humbled herself, whose insolence she had borne meekly and lovingly, whose feet she had set upon her neck. Here he stood, insolent and unfeeling still; a false impostor, whom might G.o.d refuse to pardon!
And who and what was he? Oh, what punishment was terrible enough for him? Surely--surely G.o.d would not allow him to escape! What was he?
These thoughts must have written themselves in the woman"s eyes, which were now awful to behold--eager, questioning, and malevolent. Bressant forced a harsh laugh, as men will when they find themselves opposed by impotent rage. Certainly Abbie had no other claim to be considered an amusing spectacle. Had not her revengeful rage upheld her, she must have swooned. But it was a hideous kind of vitality, unwholesome to contemplate. Bressant laughed by main strength.
"You can"t solace yourself even with that," said he, shaking his head.
"Up to three days ago I was as much in ignorance as you. It was no fault and no concern of mine; you and Professor Valeyon chose to deceive yourselves, and me. n.o.body can be more innocent than I! n.o.body can regret more, on some accounts, that our relationship is no closer!".
In this last sentence the tone of mockery he had a.s.sumed was somewhat overstrained; a suspicion of underlying sincerity grated through it.
"Don"t say you didn"t know!" said Abbie, in a guttural voice, clasping and wringing her hands, and turning her head from one side to another; "don"t dare to say it! No--no! you did--you did! You did know it, and G.o.d will punish you--G.o.d will condemn you! He must--He will!" She could not endure to believe that, having been defrauded in her love, she was to be defrauded also in her hate and thirst for revenge. She could live by either; but to be deprived of both was death!
Bressant made no reply to her uncanny pet.i.tion, and a silence followed.
Abbie stood wringing her hands, waving her head, and drawing her breath sobbingly between her teeth. Was she the same woman--stately, and almost beautiful--who had spoken so loftily and tenderly but a few minutes before? Are human generosity and affection founded on no securer basis?
Her appearance was now revolting. Suddenly a thought struck her.
"Ah! but she--_she_ can"t escape," she broke forth, seizing upon the idea with a grisly eagerness of exultation. "You can"t get _her_ away from me; I know her, oh! I know her, and I condemn her, I hate her--G.o.d!
how I hate her. She shall never be forgiven--never, never. You can never cheat me out of _her_, for I know her."
Abbie pressed both hands to her head.
"You had better hold your tongue, old woman," Bressant said, in a low voice, and a deadlier pa.s.sion than anger looked from his eyes as he fastened them upon her. "You"re so hungry to send a soul to h.e.l.l, take care you don"t find yourself there. Do you think your past life can save you? Wait till I"ve told you what it has been. You began by blasting a true man"s life, trusting too easily, against all internal evidence, to the lies that were told you about him. Next, you married the liar, not loving him, but so that the other might hear it, and believe you had forgotten him; so you acted a lie to him, and prost.i.tuted yourself bodily and spiritually to gratify your pride and revenge. Not the sort of thing that gets people to heaven, so far, is it?"
Abbie still pressed her hands to her head, and stared before her without speaking.
"You were false to your marriage vows; after that, you neglected your husband no less than he you; you never tried to make yourself lovable to him; you were the only wronged one! you could do no wrong yourself! At last you had a son."
She raised her eyes, which, during the last few minutes had become bloodshot, and fixed them fearfully upon the young man"s face, as he continued:
"You loved him, as most females do love their young, and yet not so generously as most. It was not as his father"s child, but only as your own, that he was dear to you; he was _your_ child, a part of yourself, and you loved him only because you loved yourself.
"When he was still a baby you left your husband"s house, and thereby, if justice were done, forfeited the recognition of good women, and pure society; but you took great credit to yourself because you left your son and your money behind you. Was it nothing in the balance, then, the scandal, worse than any poverty, which the recovery of your property would have caused? Nothing but self-sacrifice, to leave a sickly child to all the advantages that wealth could give it? Well, a month afterward, in spite of wealth, your son died."
At this announcement, Abbie"s convulsive strength, which had thus far served to keep her erect and motionless, exhaled itself in a long groan, and left her placid and nerveless. Seeing her about to fall, Bressant put forth his hands and grasped her arms below the shoulder, holding her thus while he went on. Her eyes were closed and her head fell forward on her bosom; but, so blinded was the young man by the remorseless pa.s.sion which had gradually been working up within him, he failed to perceive that the old woman"s ears were no longer sensible to his voice, nor her heart sensitive to his words.
"He died, and I was younger than he, but stronger, and more like my father. I was put in his place, and was called by his name. I grew up proud of what I thought my aristocratic birth! I resolved to become the most famous of mankind, and I found an angel and was going to marry her.
But the evil began to come with the good: it began long ago, and in many ways, and I tried to overcome it, or provide against it, one way or another. You benevolent people had led me into a battle-field, unarmed, and then left me to fight my way through; and I should have done it, too, but at the last I had myself to fight against, and then _I_ gave in. Why, _I_ had been dead and buried more than twenty years--why don"t you laugh at that?--and had been imposed upon all that time by this miserable nameless outcast, myself! whose father"s name was Adultery and his mother"s Sin. That was a parentage to be proud of, wasn"t it? And yet, I swear before G.o.d, I"m better contented it should be so, than to be the son of an honest marriage, with such a woman as you for my mother."
As he loosened the hold of one hand, to emphasize this oath, the senseless body, which he had been upholding, swung round, and swayed, toward the floor. He dropped the arm which remained in his grasp, and the red flush on his cheek and forehead died away into pallor, as he looked down at the dark heap of clothes lying at his feet. Finally he stooped down, and lifted her on to the sofa.
"She"s not dead," muttered he, after scrutinizing the woman"s face for a moment; "she has her punishment, though, like the rest of us."
He wrote an address on a couple of pieces of paper which he found in the drawer of the table, and fastened them to the box and trunk with some mucilage. Then he took his fur cap, and having banged on the fat Irish servant-girl"s door, and told her that her mistress was lying insensible in his study, he left the house without delay. It wanted still an hour to the time for the earliest morning train to New York, and, as the young man did not care to subject himself to questions and remarks from the officials at the village depot, he determined to walk down the track, a distance of between four and five miles, to the station below.
Off he started accordingly, and, arriving there in ample time, was able to eat a good breakfast of cold meat, hard-boiled eggs, and crackers--all the solid contents of the refreshment-room--before his train got in. He bought his ticket, stepped on board, flung himself into a seat, and left all behind him.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
WHERE TWO ROADS MEET.
The velvet-cushioned seat on which he sat felt very comfortable, and the great speed at which he was being carried along was agreeable to him. He had been busily occupied, with little rest of any kind, and scarcely any sleep, for nearly three days; and his mind had been all the time engrossed by the most harrowing thoughts and experiences. It was all over now; nothing could ever again give him apprehension or anxiety; the past was dead and never could live again; the future was arranged, and it was simple enough: he, and the woman who had given him birth, would sail together for Europe on Monday morning, at twelve o"clock. He would have abundant wealth--all the property had been converted into ready money, and would be taken with them--and he might live as luxuriously, as sensually, as much like a pampered animal as he pleased, or as he could. He would forget that he had a mind, or a heart, or a soul; they had none of them served him in good stead; but he had some reliance on his body. There were few that could compare with it in the world, and he felt convinced that he should be able to derive a great deal of enjoyment out of it before the time for its death and decay came round. At all events, he was resolved that no form of indulgence to his bodily appet.i.tes should go unproved; and when one grew stale he would try another. With such enormous vitality and capacity to be and to appreciate being voluptuous, he could hardly fail to avenge himself for the hardships he had undergone thus far.