----"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!"
Whittier.
And I did hear it; I heard during the slow gathering and heavy bursting
of that summer storm, the story about which my imagination had been so
busy, and of which I had so longed to be assured; I heard from Mr.
Rutledge's own lips, of his happy childhood, his hopeful boyhood. He
described himself as he was then, as if he were describing some one
else, some one who had died and left the light of day; for it was
nothing else but death that passed upon him, a death to hope and faith,
a death to tenderness and trust, a death to all but stern endurance and
sufferings that make life worse than death. If he had not been just so
enthusiastic and full of hope, he could not have been so dashed down to
despair; but because he had never dreamed that there could be anything
but truth and purity and honor in those he loved, just so cruel and
fatal was the awakening from the dream. He told me of his brother, the
handsome Richard: with a soul too refined and delicate for the rough
world he had to do with, a temperament that recoiled with pain from all
that was coarse or common, a pride that was so intuitive that it could
hardly be overcome, so unconscious that it could hardly be called a sin,
so fostered that he, at least, was not to blame for it. To him it was
not matter of exultation that he was rich and well-born and high-bred;
it was only his native air, his place in life, his vital breath, without
which he must have died. Never overbearing and imperious, his reserve
saved him from familiarity, his gentleness from aversion. Ah! Rutledge
had then a worthy heir, noble, handsome, high-toned enough to fill even
his proud father's ambition.
And then he told me, and it cost him a keen pang to speak her name, of
Alice, his beautiful sister; of the adoration with which he had looked
up to her, the pride which every one of the narrow home circle felt in
her loveliness and grace. He had believed she was almost an angel; he
had never looked above her for purity and truth, and in one cruel moment
he had to learn that she was false and sinful, that she had fallen below
the lowest, that "she had mixed her ancient blood with shame," that the
darling and pride of every heart was now the disgrace and anguish of
every heart.
The story that he told me did not sound at all like this; I could no
more tell it as he told it, than I could paint one of Church's pictures.
I could, perhaps, describe, so as to make intelligible, the picture or
the story, but it would be as impossible for me to render faithfully, in
every delicate tone and touch, in the masterly strength and vivid power,
the one as the other.
I listened with every pulse; my heart stopped, spellbound, before that
story; not even my own life could have had more interest to me than his;
and vaguely--but oh! how bitterly--it began to dawn upon me, that once I
might have had the power to have made the past forgotten in the present,
to have won him to believe in love and truth once more; that in my fatal
choice I had not doomed myself alone, that three souls, instead of my
own sinning one, were writhing now under the curse of my folly and
deceit. Alice Rutledge's name had perished forever from the records of
the good and pure; where would mine be, when the secrets of all hearts
should be revealed? Not among the good, with a lie on my lips, a
life-long hypocrisy to be carried in my heart; not among the pure,
cherishing yet this unconquered passion, while in the sight of Heaven I
was breaking a vow only less sacred than the one I must make before the
altar. But it is her story and not mine I am to tell.
If human love and care could suffice to keep any soul, under the
pressure of a strong temptation, Alice Rutledge might have been safe;
yet environed and hemmed in with affection, she fell; honor, pride,
filial love, were powerless to keep her back. The only principle that
can save man or woman in the hour when the powers of darkness have leave
to try them, she lacked, and lacking that, fell hopelessly from the
earthly paradise which alone she had lived for or regarded. The fair,
frail daughter of a godless house, the child whose glance had never been
directed to anything higher than virtue and honor, to whom no principle
more binding than that of morality had been taught, whose frailty had
never been strengthened by any aid more powerful and enduring than the
yearning fondness of the hearts that doted on her; what wonder that when
the powers of hell assaulted her, no strength could stand against them
that was not divine, no work stand in that day, that was of wood, or
hay, or stubble, no work that had not Heaven's own seal to resist the
devouring flame!
All that the wit and knowledge and virtue of man could teach, Alice
Rutledge had been taught; but the only lesson that could have done her
any good in that day, she had never learned. The lesson that she should
have lisped at her mother's knee, that should have been implanted before
any earthly desire had taken root in her flexile soul, had never been
given to her. The "sign to angels known," had not marked her
baby-forehead, holy hands had not overshadowed her before the strife
began, all her goodness and strength were of the earth, earthy, and the
prince of this world won an easy victory over them. When temptation
came, it found her careless, secure. How was it a possible thing for her
to fall? Why need she renounce what was but a pleasant dream, as
innocent as it was secret. She was promised to one whom she had meant to
love; she had, perhaps, loved him at first, but with a shade too much
of awe to make it perfect love, and the weakness and timidity of her
nature made her shrink involuntarily from what was higher and stronger,
and cling to what was lower, and nearer to her own level. And so she
yielded, little by little, to the fascinations of an intercourse that,
had she listened to it, even her own weak heart would have told her was
a sin. She was bound by betrothal, her tempter was bound by marriage; if
the glamour of destruction had not been over her already, she could have
seen the madness of such an intimacy, the sure perdition that such a
violation of right, even in thought, must lead to. But it was the very
impossibility and security that ensnared her, that blinded those around
her. Richard's dearest friend, the most desired and welcome guest at her
father's house, the most accomplished and refined gentleman she knew,
how could she see in him the traitor that he was? She, almost a child in
years and inexperience, and he, a man of the world, with the world's
worst principles, and withal, so wily, so eloquent, so impassioned, was
it strange that before she dreamed of danger, she was snared beyond
redemption. The destruction of her principles had been so gradual, the
instilling of his so artful, that the work was nearly done before the
lost girl saw her peril. Then, no one can tell the struggles of her
tempted soul; duty and reason against sinful love and guilty passion;
but who can question for a moment which way the balance turned? There
was none of whom she could ask counsel. She had deceived and outraged
all she loved, so shamefully, by the very thought of what now tempted
her, that it was worse than death to betray in the least her misery. The
one to whom at last she turned, was the one least fitted to direct her;
her companion, governess and friend was only less worldly and
thoughtless than her charge; she loved her with all her heart, would
have sacrificed anything to serve her; she never dreamed of the danger
she was in till too late; terrified, she strove to bring her back to
reason, but in vain. Alice's was the stronger will, and she weakly
yielded to it, and became the reluctant tool in the hands of the
seducer.
In one awful moment it burst upon the proud old man that his name was
branded with disgrace, his daughter fled, his love outraged, his honor
stabbed a deadly blow; all that he had lived for lost; all that he had
hoped for blighted.
In that household there was such amazement and wrath and desolation as
are horrible but to imagine. Love outraged most cruelly, friendship
betrayed most vilely, all that was pure turned into sin, all that was
true turned false. In one short hour, the pride of that ungodly home was
humbled to the dust, its fair name stained with shame, its very life's
blood oozing from that cruel wound. "Therefore revenge became it well?"
Therefore the agony that nothing else could allay, should seek to dull
itself in vengeance, should hunt to the very death the shameless
traitor? Should hurl blighting curses on the head of her who had brought
this ruin on her home?
But God stayed the impotent wrath of man. He took the vengeance that
alone is His, in His own hands; the curses that the outraged father
called down on his erring child, clustered, a black and ghastly troop,
around his own dying bed, and shut off the last ray of mercy. Before a
hand could be raised to deal vengeance, death struck down the father,
and but few days and nights of anguish and solicitude had passed before
his heir lay dead beside him, and the life of the boy who alone of all
survived, lay trembling in the balance. For a long while it seemed
uncertain whether God had not forgotten the race that had so long
forgotten Him; whether He had not turned away His face, and they should
all die and turn again to their dust; whether the memory of them should
not be rooted off of the earth, and their name perish from among the
children of men. For a long while, the boy lay between life and death,
but when at last life conquered, and he came back to the changed and
desolated world, it was with but little gratitude for the boon that had
been granted him, with almost a loathing of the life that had been
spared to him.
It is not necessary to the purposes of my story nor will it further its
elucidation, to repeat the history of the years that followed. It is
sufficient that they were years of misanthropy and misery, almost of
infidelity. Travel, change, society, neither attracted nor soothed him;
the life he led it suited no one to join him in, and in the midst of the
world he lived unmolested by it and regardless of it. At last--what need
to tell when or how--there came an awakening; he saw the truth he had
been so long shutting his eyes from, he saw God's mercy and his own sin,
and rousing from his apathy he bent himself to the work that lay before
him. We know what that work was, and how well he fulfilled it; from the
misanthropic recluse, he became the Christian. I knew all this, and much
more, that he did not tell me.
"The story has been too long already, I will leave you now," said Mr.
Rutledge with a sudden change of voice; "I have finished my office of
_raconteur_, you have listened well; almost I could swear to having seen
a tear glisten in your eye, almost I could take my oath you have not
once thought of yourself and your young lady sensibilities, but have
been absorbed to forgetfulness of them all by the story of one who is
almost a stranger to you, quite a stranger, indeed, you said not long
ago."
"I did not mean that when I said it, Mr. Rutledge, I repented of it a
minute afterward. And I want to say to you now--I am sorry from my heart
for that, and the many other hypocrisies you know I have been guilty of.
You don't know all, you would despise me if you did; if you knew how
cowardly I have been, and how deceitful. I have not meant it; I have
said a hundred things that I have cried for afterward, that I never
would have said if I had not been too proud and too angry to have
controlled myself. But believe me, I am miserably sorry now. Will you
forgive me?"
He leaned forward for a moment on the table, and shading his eyes with
his hand, fixed them on my face. "Forgive you?" he said in a low, clear
tone, "Forgive you? no--not yet--you must not ask it yet! When I have
conquered _my_ pride and _my_ passion, you may ask me to forgive you,
but not now--not now!"
"Aunt Edith, do you want me?" I faltered, starting up. Mrs. Churchill
moved from where she stood beside the doorway and entered the room.
"You have been absent a long while," she said in a soft voice, "we have
been wondering where you were. Mr. Rutledge, how have you managed to
amuse my listless and _distraite_ young niece so long? Have you been
studying a map of France with her, or poring over a chart of the
Atlantic? For such pursuits are all, I believe, that have any interest
for her now."
"Miss Emerson, who sent me to entertain the young lady, did not confine
me to those topics," he answered, rising, "and I have ventured to go
beyond them. She will pardon me, I know, if I have not succeeded in my
attempts to interest her." And Mr. Rutledge bowed and withdrew.
"I have a few words to say to you," said Mrs. Churchill, with muffled
hatred in her low tones. "You have withdrawn yourself from my
confidence, and from my affections; but remember, you cannot withdraw
yourself from my authority. It is perfectly useless for you to attempt
to deceive me; from the first night you came under my roof, I have known
you thoroughly. You are a care and a vexation to me daily; your
coquetry, your vanity, your boldness, I have hitherto tried to see
unmoved, knowing I was unable to influence you; but where influence
fails, authority may step in. And authority, for your own sake, for the
sake of the man you are engaged to, for my own dignity, I shall use to
prevent the recurrence of such evenings as this."
"The authority you hold, Aunt Edith," I returned with a steadiness of
tone and manner she was quite unprepared for, "the authority you hold
over me, I beg to remind you, is very limited. Don't fancy I am
unacquainted with the circumstances that have placed me in your care. I
know every word of my mother's will, I have known it from a child. My
fortune is placed at my own disposal after I am eighteen; till then I am
recommended--_recommended_, Aunt Edith, to your care, and naturally
devolve on you, but I know that I am free: I know that after next
December I am my own mistress, and till that time, no one has any right
but that of seniority and affection to dictate to me. So we understand
each other, Aunt Edith, you say rightly, and why waste words? You cannot
influence me; you have lost the only power you ever had over me. I came
to you an affectionate, trusting child; you did not care to win my
affection, you took no pains to make me trust in you. I threatened
unconsciously to interfere in the plans you had for Josephine, and you,
without a scruple, sacrificed me to her: you sacrificed my happiness, my
peace, to the ambition you had for her; you have misled, thwarted,
tortured me to make the path clear for her; you have done what in the
sight of heaven will one day be a millstone round your neck to sink you
to perdition! Oh! if I had but seen it all as clearly a few short weeks
ago, as now I see it, you would not have had your triumph as near as you
think you have it now! But because I was a foolish, trusting child, it
was not hard to deceive me; because I looked to you for direction, you
had the power to mislead me; because I had strong feelings it was all
the easier to ensnare me. Let me say what I have to say now; this is our
reckoning--I never want to have another explanation; we have understood
each other perfectly since we came to Rutledge, this plain talk we
scarcely needed, and let us end it. As long as I can endure to stay with
you, just so long will I stay, and not a moment beyond it. As long as I
must stay, you must bear the vexation and the trial of my presence, but
you may be sure, your release will not be very distant. I am not bound
to you nor to your children by one tie of gratitude or affection, and
those that restrain me of custom and convenience, don't cost much in the
snapping!"
"All this tirade has wandered very far of the mark. I began to give you
a caution and a command which my duty required me to give, and your duty
required you to heed; and you fly angrily off on some unmeaning
invectives which are very harmless because of their unmeaningness; if it
were not the case, I should call you sternly to account for your words,
and make you retract them."
"Unmeaning or not, Aunt Edith, they are sown in your memory, and nothing
can root them out. They will bear bitter fruit some day, I promise you.
They will yield a rich harvest, when the early growths of ambition and
worldliness have died down, and left you only the withered husks and
stalks of remorse and regret to satisfy your hunger withal. And now
unless you want to publish this, will you go into the parlor and let me
follow you?"
"I have something more to say to you"----
"There comes Miss Emerson; if it is anything that will bear being said
before her, pray continue."
"Ah! Is it not delightful!" cried our pretty hostess. "Mr. Rutledge and
the other gentlemen have been out, holding a post-mortem examination of
the storm, and they have decided that it has left so black a state of
heavens and so wet a state of roads that it is impossible to think of
your going home to-night, so you will have to stay till to-morrow,
_bongré malgré_. And I am so charmed. Ah! _you_ are not, though, I see
plainly enough, you want to go back to that tiresome Rutledge. What can
it be, Mrs. Churchill? What is the matter with her. Though to be sure,
the pale cheeks are gone now; I think I prescribed well. Mr. Rutledge
must have said something very exciting all the while he was in here, to
have given you such a bright color and such flashing eyes."
"A very little excitement brings that result, Miss Emerson. She has not
learned much self-possession or self-control yet; we must excuse her."
"Oh! by all means. I am only glad she looks brighter than when I left
her. But will you come into the parlor? Miss Josephine is going to give
us one more song before we go to our rooms."
Josephine's song was gay and brilliant, her voice was rich and full, but
they failed to drive the dreary echo of Victor's last words out of my
mind, that deepened and strengthened as the night advanced: "You shall
be freed! Be sure you shall be freed!" The lights shone clear and soft
on the gay groups that peopled the rooms around me; but instead of them,
I seemed to see, far nearer and more distinct, the deserted chamber at
Rutledge, where the guilt of the Past and the crime of the Present, kept
awful watch together.