"It matters not, dear Mrs. Thackeray. G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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. G.o.d is watchful to give us help the moment he sees that we really seek his a.s.sistance.
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 eyeb.a.l.l.s 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.
"G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude."
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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sists 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 cla.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 un.o.bserved 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.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
SUSPENSE AND AGONY.
At the risk of seeming monotonous, we must repeat the reflection made in our last chapter, that the things we are about to lose for ever seem always more valuable in the moment of their loss. They acquire a newer interest in our eyes at such a time, possibly under the direction of some governing instinct which is intended to render us tenacious of life to the very last. Privation teaches us much more effectually than possession the value of all human enjoyments; and the moralist has more than once drawn his sweetest portraits of liberty from the gloom and the denials of a dungeon. How eloquent of freedom is he who yearns for it in vain! How glowing is that pa.s.sion which laments the lost!
To one dying, as we suppose few die, in the perfect possession of their senses, how beautiful must seem the fading hues of the sunlight, flickering along the walls of a chamber! how heavenly the brief glimpses of the blue sky through the half-opened window! how charming the green bit of foliage that swings against the pane! how cheering and unwontedly sweet and balmy the soft, sudden gust of the sweet south, breathing up from the flowers, and stirring the loose drapery around the couch! How can we part with these without tears? how reflect, without horror, upon the close coffin, the damp clod, the deep hollows of the earth in which we are to be cabined? Oh, with what earnestness, at such a moment, must the wholly conscious spirit pray for life! now greedily will he drink the nauseous draught in the hope to secure its boon! how fondly will he seize upon every chimera, whether of his own or of another"s fancy, in order to gain a little respite--in order still to keep within the grasp of mind and sight, these lovely agents of earth and its Master, which, in our day of strength and exultation, we do not value at one half their worth! And how full of dread and horror must be that first awful conviction which a.s.sures him that the struggle is in vain--that the last remedy is tried--that nothing is left him now but despair--despair and death! Then it is that Christianity comes to his relief. If he believes, he gains by his loss. Its G.o.dlike promise a.s.sures him then that the things which his desires make dear, his faith has rendered immortal.
The truth of many of these reflections made their way into the mind of Margaret Cooper, as she pursued the well-known path along the hills. She observed the objects along the route more narrowly than ever. She was taking that path for the last time. Her eyes would behold these objects no more. How often had she pursued the same route with Alfred Stevens!
But then she had not seen these things; she had not observed these thousand graces and beauties of form and shadow which now seemed to crowd around, challenging her regard and demanding her sympathies.
Then she had seen nothing but him. The bitterness which this reflection occasioned made her hurry her footsteps; but there was an involuntary shudder that pa.s.sed through her frame, when, in noting the strange beauty of the path, she reflected that it would be trodden by her for the last time. Her breathing became quickened by the reflection. She pressed forward up the hills. The forests grew thick around her--deep, dim, solemn, and inviting. The skies above looked down in little blessed blue tufts, through the crowding tree-tops. The long vista of the woods led her onward in wandering thoughts.
To fix these thoughts--to keep them from wandering! This was a difficulty. Margaret Cooper strove to do so, but she could not.
Never did her mind seem such a perfect chaos--so full of confused and confusing objects and images. Her whole life seemed to pa.s.s in review before her. All her dreams of ambition, all the struggles of her genius!
Were these to be thrown away? Were these all to be wasted? Was her song to be unheard? Was her pa.s.sionate and proud soul to have no voice?
If death is terrible to man, it is terrible, not as a pang, but as an oblivion; and to the soul of genius, oblivion is a soul-death, and its thought is a source of tenfold terror.