"If you are not afraid to declare your own act, you should at least scruple to denounce her shame! She died your wife. Let that seal your tongue. The shame would be shared between you! You could only justify your crime by exposing hers!"
With the stern strength of desperation I stood above the grave, and heard the heavy clod ring hollowly upon the coffin. And there closed two lives in one. My hopes were buried there as effectually as her unconscious form.
Life is not breath simply. Not the capacity to move, and breathe, to act, eat, drink, sleep, and say, "Thank G.o.d! we have ate, drank, and slept!" The life of humanity consists in hope, love, and labor. In the capacity to desire, to affect, ant to struggle. I had now nothing for which I could hope, nothing to love, nothing to struggle for!
Yes! life has something more:--endurance! This is a part of the allotment. The conviction of this renewed my strength But it was the strength of desolation I I had taken courage from despair!
CHAPTER LIII.
REVELATION--THE LETTER OF JULIA.
It must be remembered, that, in all this time--amidst all my agonies--my feelings of dest.i.tution and despair--I had few or no doubts of the guilt of Julia Clifford. My sufferings arose from the love which I had felt--the defeat of my hopes and fortune--the long struggle of conflicting feelings, mortified pride, and disappointed enjoyment.
Excited by the melancholy spectacle before me--beholding the form of her, once so beautiful--still so beautiful--whom I had loved with such an absorbing pa.s.sion--whom I could not cease to love--suddenly cut off from life--her voice, which was so musical, suddenly hushed for ever--the tides of her heart suddenly stopped--and all the sweet waters of hope dried up in her bosom, and turned into bitterness and blight in mine--the force of my feelings got the better of my reason, and cruel and oppressive doubts of the justness of her doom overpowered my soul.
But, with the subsiding of my emotions, under the stern feeling of resolve which came to my relief, and which my course of education enabled me to maintain, my persuasions of her guilt were resumed, and I naturally recurred to the conclusions which had originally justified me to myself, in inflicting the awful punishment of death upon her. But I was soon to be deprived of this justification--to be subjected to the terrible recoil of all my feelings of justice, love, honor and manliness, in the new and overwhelming conviction, not only that I had been premature, but that she was innocent!--innocent, equally of thought and deed, which could incur tire reproach of impurity, or the punishment of guilt.
Three days had elapsed after her burial, when I re-opened and re-appeared in my office. I did not re-open it with any intention to resume my business. That was impossible in a place, where, at every movement, the grave of my victim rose, always green, in my sight. My purpose was to put my papers in order transfer them to other parties, dispose of my effects, and depart with Kingsley to the new countries, of which he had succeeded in impressing upon me some of his own opinions.
Not that these furnished for me any attractions. I was not persuaded by any customary arguments held out to the ambitious and the enterprising.
It was a matter of small moment to me where I went, so that I left the present scene of my misery and over-throw. In determining to accompany him to Texas, no part of my resolve was influenced by the richness of its soil, or the greatness of its probable destinies. These, though important in the eyes of my friend, were as nothing in mine. In taking that route my object was simply, TO GO WITH HIM. He had sympathized with me, after a rough fashion of his own, the sincerity of which was more dear to me than the roughness was repulsive. He had witnessed my cares--he knew my guilt and my griefs--this knowledge endeared him to me more strongly than ever, and made him now more necessary to my affections than any other living object.
I re-opened my office and resumed my customary seat at the table. But I sat only to ruminate upon things and thoughts which, following the track of memory, diverted my sight as well as my mind, from all present objects. I saw nothing before me, except vaguely, and in a sort of shadow. I had a hazy outline of books against the wall; and a glimmering show of papers and bundles upon the table. I sat thus for some time, lost in painful and humiliating revery. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a packet on the table, which I did not recollect to have seen before. It bore my name. I shuddered to behold it, for it was in the handwriting of my wife. This, then, was the writing upon which she had been secretly engaged, for so many days, and of which Mrs. Porterfield had given me the first intimation. I remembered the words of Julia when she a.s.sured me that it was intended for me--when she playfully challenged my curiosity, and implored me to acknowledge an anxiety to knew the contents. The pleading tenderness of her speech and manner now rose vividly to my recollection. It touched me more now--now that the irrevocable step had been taken--far more than it ever could have affected me then. Then, indeed, I remained unaffected save by the caprice of my evil genius. The demon of the blind heart was then uppermost. In vain now did I summon him to my relief. Where was he? Why did he not come?
I took up the packet with trembling fingers. My nerves almost failed me. My heart shrank and sank with painful presentiments. What could this writing mean? Of what had Julia Clifford to write? Her whole world"s experience was contained, and acquired, in my household. The only portion of this experience which she might suppose unknown to me was her intercourse with Edgerton. The conclusion, then, was natural that this writing related to this matter; but, if natural, why had I not conjectured it before? Why, when I first heard of it, had the conclusion not forced itself upon me as directly as it did now? Alas! it was clear to me now that I was then blind; and, with this clearness of sight, my doubts increased; but they were doubts of myself, rather than doubts of her.
It required an effort before I could recover myself sufficiently to break the seal of the packet. First, however, I rose and reclosed the office. Whatever might be the contents of the paper, to me it was the language of a voice from the grave. It contained the last words of one I never more should hear. The words of one whom I had loved as I could never love again. It was due to her, and to my own heart, that she should be heard in secret;--that her words--whether in reproach or repentance--whether in love or scorn--should fall upon mine ear without witness, in a silence as solemn as was that desolate feeling which now sat, like a spectre, brooding among the ruins of my heart.
My pulses almost ceased to beat--my respiration was impeded--my eyes swam--my senses reeled in dismay and confusion--as I read the following epistle. Too late! too late! Blind, blind heart! And still I was not mad!--No! no!--that would have been a mercy which I did not merit!--that would have been forgetfulness--utter oblivion of the woe which I can never cease to feel.
The Last Letter of Julia.
"Husband, Dear Husband!
"I write to you in fear and trembling. I have striven to speak to you, more than once, but my tongue and strength have failed me. What I have to tell you is so strange and offensive, and will be to you so startling, that you will find it hard to believe me; and yet, dear husband, there is not a syllable of it which is not true! If I knew that I were to die to-morrow I could with perfect safety and confidence make the same confession which I make now. But I do not wish you to take what I say on trust; look into the matter yourself--not precipitately--above all, not angrily--and you will see that I say nothing here which the circ.u.mstances will not prove. Indeed, my wonder is that so much of it has remained unknown to you already.
"Husband, Mr. Egerton deceives you--he has all along deceived you--he is neither your friend nor mine. I would call him rather the most dangerous enemy; for he comes by stealth, and abuses confidence, and, like the snake in the fable, seeks to sting the very hand that has warmed him.
I know how much this will startle you, for I know how much you think of him, and love him, and how many are the obligations which you owe to his father. But hear me to the end, and you will be convinced, as I have been, that, so far from your seeking his society and permitting his intimacy in our household, you would be justified in the adoption of very harsh measures for his expulsion--at least, it would become your duty to inform him that you can no longer suffer his visits.
"To begin, then, dear husband. Mr. Egerton has been bold enough to speak to me in such language, as was insulting in him to utter, and equally painful and humiliating for me to hear. He has done this, not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but many times. You will ask why I have not informed you of this before; but I had several reasons for forbearing to do so, which I will relate in the proper places. I fancied that I could effectually repel insult of this sort without making you a party to it, for I feared the violence of your temper, and dreaded that the consequences might be bloodshed. I am only prompted to take a different course now, as I find that I was mistaken in this impression--and perceive that there is no hope of a remedy against the impertinence but by appealing to you for protection.
"It was not long after our marriage before the attentions of Mr.
Edgerton became so particular as to annoy me; and I consulted my mother on the subject, but she a.s.sured me that such were customary, and so long as you were satisfied I had no reason to be otherwise. I was not quite content with this a.s.surance, but did not know what other course to take, and there was nothing in the conduct of Mr. Edgerton so very marked and offensive as to justify me in making any communication to you. What offended me in his bearing was his fixed and continued watchfulness--the great earnestness of his looks--the subdued tones of his voice when he spoke to me, almost falling to a whisper, and the unusual style of his language, which seemed to address itself to such feelings only as do not belong to the common topics of discourse. The frequency of his visits to the studio afforded him opportunities for indulging in these practices; and your strange indifference to his approaches, and your equally strange and most unkind abandonment of my society for that of others, increased these opportunities, of which he scrupled not to take constant advantage. I soon perceived that he sought the house only at the periods when you were absent. He seemed always to know when this was the case; and I noted the fact, particularly, that, if, on such occasions, you happened to arrive unexpectedly he never remained long afterward, but took his departure with an abruptness that, it seemed wonderful to me you should not have perceived. Conduct so strange as this annoyed rather than alarmed me; and it made me feel wretched, perhaps beyond any necessity for it, when I found myself delivered up, as it were, to such persecution, by the very person whose duty it was to preserve me, and whose own presence, which would have been an effectual protection, was so dear to me always. Do not suppose, dear Edward, that I mean to reproach you. I do not know what may have been your duties abroad, and the trials which drew you so much from home, and from the eyes of a wife who knows no dearer object of contemplation than the form of her husband. Men in business, I know, have a thousand troubles out of doors, which a generous sensibility makes them studious never to bring home with them; and, knowing this, I determined to think lovingly of you always--to believe anything rather than that you would willingly neglect me;--and, by the careful exercise of my thoughts and affections, as they should properly be exercised, so to protect my own dignity and your honor, as to spare you any trouble or risk in a.s.serting them, and, at the same time, to save both from reproach.
"But, though I think I maintained the most rigid reserve, as well of looks as of language, this unhappy young man continued his persecutions.
In order to avoid him, I abandoned my usual labors in the studio. From the moment when I saw that he was disposed to abuse the privileges of friendship, I yielded that apartment entirely to him, and invariably declined seeing him when he visited the house in the mornings. But I could not do this at evening; and this became finally a most severe trial, for it so happened, that you now adopted a habit which left him entirely unrestrained, unless in the manner of his reception by myself.
You now seldom remained at home of an evening, and thus deprived me of that natural protector whose presence would have spared me much pain with which I will not distress you. Ah! dearest husband, why did you leave me on such occasions? Why did you abandon me to the two-fold affliction of combating the approaches of impertinence, at the very moment when I was suffering from the dreadful apprehension that I no longer possessed those charms which had won me the affections of a husband. Forgive me! My purpose is not to reproach, but to entreat you.
"I need not pa.s.s over the long period through which this persecution continued. Your indifference seemed to me to give stimulus to the perseverance of this young man. Numberless little circ.u.mstances combined to make me think that, from this cause, indeed, he drew something like encouragement for his audacious hopes. The strength of your friendship for him blinded you to attentions which, it seemed to me, every eye must have seen but yours. I grew more and more alarmed; and a second time consulted with my mother. Her written answer you will find, marked No.
1, with the rest of the enclosures in this envelope. She laughed at my apprehensions, insisted that Mr. Edgerton had not transcended the customary privileges, and intimated, very plainly as you will see, that a wife can suffer nothing from the admiration of a person, not her husband, however undisguised this admiration may be--provided she herself shows none in return;--an opinion with which I could not concur, for the conclusive reason that, whatever the world may think on such a subject, the object of admiration, if she has any true sensibilities, must herself suffer annoyance, as I did, from the special designation which attends such peculiar and marked attention as that to which I was subjected. My mother took much pains, verbally and in writing, as the within letters will show you, to relieve me from the feeling of disquiet under which I suffered, but without effect; and I was further painfully afflicted by the impression which her general tone of thought forced upon me, that her sense of propriety was so loose and uncertain that I could place no future reliance upon her councils in relation to this or any other kindred subject. Ah, Edward! little can you guess how lonely and desolate I felt, when, unable any longer to refer to her, I still did not dare to look to you.
"One opinion of hers, however, had very much alarmed me. You will find it expressed in the letter marked No. 8, in this collection. When I complained to her of the approaches of Mr. Edgerton, and declared my purpose of appealing to you if they were continued, she earnestly and expressly exhorted me against any such proceeding. She a.s.sured me that such a step would only lend to violence and bloodshed--reminded me of your sudden anger--your previous duel--and insisted that nothing more was necessary to check the impertinence than my own firmness and dignity. Perhaps this would have been enough, were it always practicable to maintain the reserve and coldness which was proper to effect this object, and, indeed, I could not but perceive that the effect was produced in considerable degree by this course. Mr. Edgerton visited the house less frequently; grew less impressive in his manner, and much more humble, until that painful and humiliating night of my mother"s marriage. That night he asked me to dance with him. I declined; but afterward he came to me accompanied by my mother. She whispered in my ears that I was harsh in my refusal, and called my attention to his wretched appearance. Had I reflected upon it then, as I did afterward, this very allusion would have been sufficient to have determined me not to consent;--but I was led away by her suggestions of pity, and stood up with him for a cotillion. But the music changed, the set was altered, and the Spanish dance was subst.i.tuted in its place. In the course of this dance, I could not deceive myself as to the degree of presumption which my partner displayed; and, but for the appearance of the thing, and because I did not wish to throw the room into disorder, I would have stopped and taken my seat long before it was over. When I did take my seat, I found myself still attended by him, and it was with difficulty that I succeeded finally in defeating his perseverance, by throwing myself into the midst of a set of elderly ladies, where he could no longer distinguish me with his attentions. In the meantime you had left the room. You had deserted me. Ah! Clifford, to what annoyance did your absence expose me that night! To that absence, do we owe that I lost the only dear pledge of love that G.o.d had ever vouchsafed us--and you know how greatly my own life was perilled. Think not, dearest, that I speak this to reproach you; and yet--could you have remained!--could you have loved, and longed to be and remain with me, as most surely did I long for your presence only and always--ah! how much sweeter had been our joys--how more pure our happiness--our faith--with now--perhaps, even now--the dear angel whom we then lost, living and smiling beneath our eyes, and linking our mutual hearts more and more firmly together than before!
"That night, when it became impossible to remain longer without trespa.s.sing--when all the other guests had gone--I consented to be taken home in Mr. Edgerton"s carriage. Had I dreamed that Mr. Edgerton was to have been my companion, I should have remained all night before I would have gone with him, knowing what I knew, and feeling the mortification which I felt. But my mother a.s.sured me that I was to have the carriage to myself--it was she who had procured it;--and it was not until I was seated, and beheld him enter, that I had the least apprehension of such an intrusion. Edward! it is with a feeling almost amounting to horror, that I am constrained to think that my mother not only knew of his intention to accompany me, but that she herself suggested it. This, I say to YOU! You will find the reasons for my suspicions in the letters which I enclose. It is a dreadful suspicion--at the expense of one"s own mother! I dare not believe in the dark malice which it implies.--I strive to think that she meant and fancied only some pleasant mischief.
"I shudder to declare the rest! This man, your friend--he whom you sheltered in your bosom, and trusted beyond all others--whom you have now taken into your house with a blindness that looks more like a delusion of witchcraft than of friendship--this impious man, I say, dared to wrap me in his embrace--dared to press his lips upon mine!
"My cheek even now burns as I write, and I must lay down the pen because of my trembling. I struggled from his grasp--I broke the window by my side, and cried for help from the wayfarers. I cried for you! But, you did not answer! Oh, husband! where were you? Why, why did you expose me to such indignities?
"He was alarmed. He promised me forbearance; and, convulsed with fright and fear, I found myself within our enclosure, I knew not how; but before I reached the cottage I became insensible, and knew nothing more until the pangs of labor subdued the more lasting pains of thought and recollection.
"You resolved to leave our home--to go abroad among strangers, and Oh!
how I rejoiced at your resolution. It seemed to promise me happiness; at least it promised me rescue and relief. I should at all events be free from the persecution of this man. I dreaded the consequences, either to you or to him-self, of the exposure of his insolence. I had resolved on making it; and only hesitated, day by day, as my mother dwelt upon the dangers which would follow. And when you determined on removal, it seemed to me the most fortunate providence, it promised to spare me the necessity of making this painful revelation at all. Surely, I thought, and my mother said, as this will put an effectual stop to his presumption, there will be no need to narrate what is already past. The only motive in telling it at all would be to prevent, not to punish: if the previous one is effected by other means, it is charity only to forbear the relation of matters which would breed hatred, and probably provoke strife. This made me silent; and, full of new hope--the hope that having discarded all your old a.s.sociates and removed from all your old haunts, you would become mine entirely--I felt a new strength in my frame, a new life in my breast, and a glow upon my cheeks as within my soul, which seemed a guaranty for a long and happy term of that love which had begun in my bosom with the first moments of its childish consciousness and confidence.
"But one painful scene and hour I was yet compelled to endure the night before our departure. Mr. Edgerton came to play his flute under our window. I say Mr. Edgerton, but it was only by a sort of instinct that I fixed upon him as the musician. Perhaps it was because I knew not what other person to suspect. Frequently, before this night, had I heard this music; but on this occasion he seemed to have approached more nearly to the dwelling; and, indeed, I finally discovered that he was actually beneath the China-tree that stood on the south front of the cottage. I was asleep when the music began. He must have been playing for some time before I awakened. How I was awakened I know not; but something disturbed me, and I then saw you about to leave the room stealthily. I heard your feet upon the stairs, and in the next moment I discovered one of your pistols lying upon the window-sill, just beneath my eyes. This alarmed me; a thousand apprehensions rushed into my brain; all the suggestions of strife and bloodshed which my mother had ever told me, filled my mind; and without knowing exactly what I did or said, I called out to the musician to fly with all possible speed. He did so; and after a delay which was to me one of the most cruel apprehension, you returned in safety. Whether you suspected, and what, I could not conjecture; but if you had any suspicions of me, you did not seem to entertain any of him, for you spoke of him afterward with the same warm tone of friendship as before.
"That something in my conduct had not pleased you, I could see from your deportment as we travelled the next morning. You were sad, and very silent and abstracted. This disappeared, however, and, day by day, my happiness, my hope, my confidence in you, in myself, in all things, increased--and I felt a.s.sured of realizing that perfect idea of felicity which I proposed to myself from the moment when you declared your purpose to emigrate. Were we not happy, husband--so happy at M----, for weeks, for months--always, morning, noon, and night--until the reappearance of this false friend of yours? Then, it seemed to me as if everything changed. Then, that other friend of yours--who, though he never treated me with aught but respect, I yet can call no friend of mine--Mr. Kingsley, drew you away again from your home--carried you with him to his haunts--detained you late and long, by night and day--and I was left once more exposed to the free and frequent familiarity of Mr.
Edgerton. He renewed his former habits; his looks were more presuming, and his attentions more direct and loathsome than ever. More than once I strove to speak with you on this hateful subject; but it was so shocking, and you were so fond of him, and I still had my fears! At length, moved by compa.s.sion, you brought him to our house. Blind and devoted to him--with a blindness and devotion beyond that which the n.o.blest friendship would deserve, but which renders tenfold more hateful the dishonest and treacherous person upon whom it is thrown away--you command me to meet him with kindness--to tend his bed of sickness--to soothe his moments of sadness and despondency--to expose myself to his insolence!
"Husband, my soul revolts at this charge! I have disobeyed it and you; and I must justify myself in this my disobedience. I must at length declare the truth. I have striven to do so in the preceding narrative.
This narrative I began when you brought this false friend into our dwelling. He must leave it. You must command his departure. Do not think me moved by any unhappy or unbecoming prejudices against him. My antipathies have arisen solely from his presumption and misconduct. I esteemed him--nay, I even liked him--before. I liked his taste for the arts, his amiable manners, his love of music and poetry, and all those graces of the superior mind and education, which dignify humanity, and indicate its probable destinies. But when he showed me how false he was to a friendship so free and confiding as was yours--when he abused my eyes and ears with expressions unbecoming in him, and insulting and ungenerous to me--I loathed and spurned him. While he is in your house I will strive and treat him civilly, but do not tax me further. For your sake I have borne much; for the sake of peace, and to avoid strife and crime, I have been silent--perhaps too long. The strange, improper letters of my mother, which I enclose, almost make me tremble to think that I have paid but too much deference to her opinion. But, in the expulsion of this miserable man from your dwelling, there needs no violence, there needs no crime! A word will overwhelm him with shame.
Remember, dear husband, that he is feeble and sick; it is probable he has not long to live. Perform your painful duty privily, and with all the forbearance which is consistent with a proper firmness. In truth, he has done us no real harm. Let us remember THAT! If anything, he has only made me love you the more, by showing so strongly how generous is the nature which he has so infamously abused. Once more, dear husband, do no violence. Let not our future days be embittered by any recollections of the present. Command, compel his departure, and come home to me, and keep with me always.
"Your own true wife,
"Julia Clifford."
"Postscript.--I had closed this letter yesterday, thinking to send it to your office in the afternoon. I had hoped that there would be nothing more;--but last night, this madman--for such I must believe him to be--committed another outrage upon my person! He has a second time seized me in his arms and endeavored to grasp me in his embrace. O husband!--why, why do you thus expose me? Do you indeed love me? I sometimes tremble with a fear lest you do not. But I dare not think so.
Yet, if you do, why am I thus exposed--thus deserted--thus left to a companionship which is equally loathsome to me and dishonoring to you?
I implore you to open your eyes--to believe me, and discard this false friend from your dwelling and your confidence. But, oh, be merciful, dear husband! Strike no sudden blow! Send him forth with scorn but remember his feebleness, his family, and spare his life. I send this by Emma. Let no one see the letters of my mother but burn them instantly.
"Your own Julia."
And this was the writing which had employed her time for days before the sad catastrophe! And it was for this reason that she asked, with so much earnestness, if I had been to my office on the day when I drove Edgerton out into the woods for the adjustment of our issue? No wonder that she was anxious at that moment. How much depended upon that simple and ordinary proceeding. Had I but gone that day to my office as usual!......
There were no longer doubts. There could be none. There was now no mystery. It was all clear. The most ambiguous portions of her conduct had been as easily and simply explained as the rest. But it availed nothing! The blow had fallen. I was an accursed man--truly accursed, and miserably desolate.
I still sat, stolid, seemingly, as the insensible chair which sustained me, when Kingsley came in. He took the papers from my unresisting hands.
He read them in silence. I heard but one sentence from his lips, and it came from them unconsciously:--
"Poor, poor girl!"
I looked round and started to my feet. The tears were on on manly checks. I hatched none. My eyes were dry! The fountains of tears seemed shut up, arid and dusty.
"I must make atonement!" I exclaimed. "I must deliver myself up to justice!"
"This is madness," said he, seizing my arm as I was about to leave the room.
"No: retribution only! I have destroyed her. I must make the only atonement which is in my power. I must die!"