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 const.i.tution successfully resisted the attacks of the a.s.sailant. 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 a.s.sisted 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 p.r.i.c.k 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 circ.u.mstances, require her a.s.sistance 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 circ.u.mstances 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 s.e.x, examined these pistols. They were of bra.s.s, 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 x.x.xV.
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 enn.o.bling 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 circ.u.mstance. 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 G.o.d."
"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 G.o.d 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."