“Mother, mother, up in heaven!
Stand upon the jasper sea
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me;
Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned,
Love that left me with a wound,
Life itself that turned around.”
--MRS. BROWNING.
An evil fatality seemed to attend all events connected with Margaret
Helmstedt. The letter mailed at midnight night, by being one minute too
late for the post, was delayed a whole week, and until it could do no
manner of good.
The little packet schooner, _Canvas Back_, Captain Miles Tawney, from
Washington to Norfolk, on board which Ralph Houston, the next morning,
embarked, when but thirty-six hours out got aground below Blackstone’s
Island, where she remained fast for a week.
And thus it unhappily chanced that Major Helmstedt, who reached
Washington, on his way home, a few days after the departure of the
Houstons from the city, and took passage in the first packet for
Buzzard’s Bluff, arrived thither the first of the returning soldiers.
Having no knowledge or suspicion of the important events that had
occurred, he caused himself and his baggage to be landed upon the
beach, below the mansion, in which he naturally expected to find his
daughter dwelling in honor and security.
Leaving his trunks in charge of a loitering negro--whom he had found
upon the sands, and who, to his hasty inquiries, had answered that all
the family were well--he hurried up to the house.
He was met at the door by a servant, who, with ominous formality,
ushered him into the parlor, and retreated to call his mistress.
Mrs. Houston soon entered, with a pale face, trembling frame, and a
half-frightened, half-threatening aspect, that greatly surprised and
perplexed Major Helmstedt, who however, arose with stately courtesy to
receive and hand the lady to a chair.
After respectfully saluting and seating his hostess, he said:
“My daughter Margaret, madam--I hope she is well?”
“Well, I am sure I hope so, too; but Margaret is not with us!” replied
the little lady, looking more frightened and more threatening than
before.
“How, madam, Margaret not with you?” exclaimed Major Helmstedt, in
astonishment, that was not free from alarm.
“No, sir. You must listen to me, major--it could not be helped,”
replied Nellie, who straightway began, and with a manner
half-deprecating and half-defiant, related the story of Margaret’s
indiscretions, humiliations, and final expulsion.
Major Helmstedt listened with a mighty self-control. No muscle of his
iron countenance moved. When she had concluded, he arose, with a cold
and haughty manner.
“Slanders, madam--slanders all! I can say no more to a lady, however
unworthy of the courtesy due to her sex. But I shall know how to call
the men of her family to a strict account for this insult.” And,
throwing his hat upon his head, he strode from the room.
“Major Helmstedt--Major Helmstedt! Come back, sir. Don’t go; you must
please to listen to me,” cried Nellie, running after him, the principle
of fear now quite predominating over that of defiance.
But the outraged father, without deigning a word or look of reply,
hurried onward toward the beach.
Nellie, in great alarm, dispatched a servant in haste after him, to
beseech him, in her name, to return and stay to dinner--or, if he would
not honor her so far, at least to accept the use of a carriage, or a
boat, to convey him whithersoever he wished to go.
But Major Helmstedt, with arrogant scorn, repulsed all these offers.
Throwing a half guinea to the negro to take temporary charge of his
trunks, he strode on his way, following the windings of the waterside
road for many miles, until late in the afternoon he reached Belleview,
whence he intended to take a boat to the island.
His cause of indignation was reasonable, and his rage increased with
time and reflection. That Margaret had been foully wronged by the
Houstons he from his deepest convictions believed. That the charges
brought against her had the slightest foundation in fact, he could not
for a moment credit. All his own intimate knowledge of his pure-hearted
child, from her earliest infancy to the day when he left her in Mrs.
Houston’s care, conclusively contradicted these calumnies. But that,
for some reason or other, unconfessed, the Houstons wished to break
off the contemplated alliance with his family he felt assured. And
that his daughter’s betrothed was in correspondence with Mrs. Houston,
and in connivance with her plans, he had been left to believe, by
the incoherence, if not by the intentional misrepresentations, of
Nellie’s statement. That they should wish, without just cause, to
break the engagement with his daughter, was both dishonorable and
dishonoring--that they should attempt this through such means, was
scandalous and insulting to the last degree. That Ralph Houston should
be either an active or a passive party to this plan, was an offense
only to be satisfied by the blood of the offender. His pride in an old,
untainted name, not less than his affection for his only daughter, was
wounded to the very quick.
There seemed but one remedy--it was to be found only in “the bloody
code,” miscalled “of honor”--the code which required a man to wash out
any real or fancied offense in the life-stream of the offender; the
code which often made an honorable man responsible, with his life, for
careless words uttered by the women of his family; that code which now
enjoined Philip Helmstedt to seek the life of his daughter’s betrothed,
his intended son-in-law, his brother-in-arms. Nor was this all. The
feeling that prompted Major Helmstedt was not only that of an affronted
gentleman, who deems it necessary to defend in the duel his assailed
manhood--it was much more--it was the blood-thirsty rage of a scornful
and arrogant man, whose honor had been wounded in the most vulnerable
place, through the only woman of his name, his one fair daughter,
who had been by her betrothed and his family rejected, insulted, and
expelled from their house, branded with indelible shame.
“Ralph Houston must die!”
He said it with remorseless resolution, with grim satisfaction, and in
his heart devoted the souls of his purposed victim and all his family
to the infernal deities.
In this evil mood, and in an evil hour, Major Helmstedt unhappily
arrived at Belleview, and, still more unhappily, there met Ralph, who,
in pursuance of his vow never to set foot upon Buzzard’s Bluff again,
had that morning landed at the village, with the intention there to
engage a boat to take him to Helmstedt’s Island, whither he was going
to seek Margaret.
It was in the principal street of the village, and before the only
hotel that they chanced to meet.
Ralph advanced with eager joy to greet his father-in-law.
But Major Helmstedt’s mad and blind rage forestalled and rendered
impossible all friendly words or explanations.
How he assailed and insulted Ralph Houston; how he hurled bitter scorn,
taunt, and defiance in his teeth how in the presence of the gathering
crowd, he charged falsehood, treachery, and cowardice upon him; how,
to cap the climax of insult, the infuriate pulled off his glove and
cast it sharply into the face of the young man; how, in short, he
irremediably forced upon Ralph a quarrel, which the latter was, upon
all accounts, most unwilling to take up, would be as painful, as
needless, to detail at large.
Suffice it to say, that the circumstances of the case, and the public
sentiment of the day considered, he left the young soldier, as a man of
honor, no possible alternative but to accept his challenge.
“‘Needs must when the devil drives;’ and, as there is no honorable
means of avoiding, I must meet this madman and receive his shot. I am
not, however, obliged to return it. No code of honor can compel me to
fire upon my Margaret’s father,” thought Ralph. Then aloud he said:
“Very well, sir; my brother Frank has doubtless by this time reached
home, and will, with any friend whom you may appoint, arrange the terms
of the meeting;” and, lifting his hat, Ralph Houston, “more in sorrow
than in anger,” turned away.
“There is no honorable way of escaping it, Frank, else be sure that I
should not give him this meeting. As it is, I must receive his fire;
but, so help me Heaven; nothing shall induce me to return it,” said
Captain Houston, as he talked over the matter with his brother that
evening in the private parlor of the little inn at Belleview.
“Then, without a thought of defending yourself, you will stand up as
a mark to be shot at by the best marksman in the country? You will be
murdered! just simply murdered!” replied the younger man, in sorrow and
disgust.
“There is no help for it, Frank. I must meet him, must receive his
fire, and will not return it!”
“You will fall,” said the youth, in a voice of despair.
“Probably. And if I do, Frank, go to my dearest Margaret and bear to
her my last words. Tell her that I never so sinned against our mutual
faith as for one instant to doubt her perfect purity; tell her that
I was on my way to take her to my heart, to give her my name and to
defend her against the world, when this fatal quarrel was forced upon
me; tell her that I never fired upon her father, but that I died with
her name upon my lips and her love within my heart. If I fall, as I
probably shall, will you tell my widowed bride this?”
“I will! I will!” exclaimed Frank, in a voice of deep emotion.
Meanwhile the innocent and most unhappy cause of the impending duel had
passed a miserable week on the solitary island, in dread anticipation
of her father’s and her lover’s return, and with no one near her to
breathe one hopeful, comforting, or sustaining word to her fainting
heart.
It was late on the evening of the day of her father’s arrival that
she sat alone on the front piazza of her solitary dwelling, wrapped
in despairing thought, yet with every nerve acute with involuntary
vigilance, when, amid the low, musical semi-silence of the autumnal
night, the sound of a boat, pushed gratingly up upon the gravelly
beach, reached her listening ear.
And while she still watched and waited in breathless anxiety, she
perceived by the clear starlight the tall figure of a man, dressed in
the blue and buff uniform of an American officer, and in whose stature,
air, and gait she recognized her father, approaching the house.
In joy, but still more in fear, she arose and hurried to meet him. But
so terrible was the trouble of her mind and the agitation of her frame,
that she could scarcely falter forth her inaudible words of welcome
before she sank exhausted in his arms.
In silence the soldier lifted her up, noticing even then how very light
was her wasted frame; in silence he kissed her cold lips, and bore her
onward to the house, and into her mother’s favorite parlor which was
already lighted up, and where he placed her in an easy-chair. She sank
back half fainting, while he stood and looked upon her, and saw how
changed she was.
Her attenuated form, her emaciated face, with its cavernous eyes,
hollow cheeks and temples, and pallid forehead, in fearful contrast
with her flowing black locks and mourning dress, gave her the
appearance of a girl in the very last stage of consumption. Yet this
was the work only of calumny, persecution, and abandonment.
Some one should write a book on Unindicted Homicides.
While Major Helmstedt gazed in bitterness of heart upon this beautiful
wreck of his fair, only daughter, she fixed her despairing eyes upon
him, and said:
“My father, do you wonder to find me here!”
For answer, he stooped and kissed her forehead.
“Father, my heart bleeds for you. This is a sorrowful welcome home for
the returning soldier.”
“Trouble not yourself about me, my child. Your own wrongs are enough,
and more than enough, to engage your thoughts. I know those wrongs,
and, by the soul of your mother, they shall be terribly avenged!”
said Major Helmstedt, in a low, deep, stern voice of relentless
determination.
“Father, oh, God! what do you mean?” exclaimed Margaret, in alarm.
“I mean, my much injured child, that every tear they have caused you to
shed, shall be balanced by a drop of heart’s blood, though it should
drain the veins of all who bear the name of Houston!”
“Oh, Heaven of heavens, my father!” cried Margaret, wringing her pale
hands in the extremity of terror. Then suddenly catching the first hope
that came, she said:
“But you cannot war upon women.”
“Upon all men that bear the name of Houston, then! Yet did not they
spare to war upon women--or rather worse, upon one poor, defenseless
girl! Enough! they shall bitterly repay it!”
“But father! my father! it was not the men; they were ever kind to
me. It was the women of the family, and even they were deceived by
appearances,” pleaded Margaret.
“It is you who are deceived! Mrs. Houston acted in concert with her
husband and his son!”
“Ralph? never, never, my father. My life, my soul, upon Ralph’s
fidelity!” exclaimed Margaret, as a warm glow of loving faith flowed
into and transfigured to angelic beauty her pale face.
“Miss Helmstedt, you are a fond and foolish girl, with all your sex’s
weak credulity. It is precisely Ralph Houston whom I shall hold to be
the most responsible party in this affair!”
“Oh! my God!”
These words were wailed forth in such a tone of utter despair, and
were accompanied by such a sudden blanching and sharpening of all her
features, that Major Helmstedt in his turn became alarmed, and with
what diplomacy he was master of, endeavored to modify the impression
that he had given. But his palpable efforts only confirmed Margaret in
her suspicion that he intended to challenge Ralph, and made her more
wary and watchful to ascertain if this really were his purpose, so
that, if possible, she might prevent this meeting. That the challenge
had been already given she did not even suspect.
But from this moment the father and daughter were secretly arrayed
against each other; he to conceal from her the impending duel; she
to discover and prevent the meeting. And while he talked to her with
a view of gradually doing away the impression that his first violent
words had made upon her mind, she watched his countenance narrowly,
keeping the while her own counsel. But it was not entirely the wish to
conceal her own anguish of doubt and anxiety, but affectionate interest
in him, that caused her at length to say:
“But, my dear father, you are just off a long, harassing journey; you
are, indeed, greatly exhausted; your countenance is quite haggard; you
are needing rest and refreshment. Let me go now and give the orders,
while you occupy my sofa. Say, what shall I bring you, dear father?”
“Nothing, nothing, Margaret; I cannot----” began Major Helmstedt; but
then suddenly reflecting, he said: “Yes, you may send me up a cup of
coffee, and any trifle with it that may be at hand. No, I thank you,
Margaret, you need not draw the sofa forward. I am going to my study,
where I have letters to write. Send the refreshments thither. And
send--let me see--yes! send Forrest to me.”
“Very well, my dear father,” replied the maiden, leaving the room.
“‘Letters to write!’ ‘letters to write!’ and ‘send Forrest.’ So late
at night, and just as he has returned home, oh, my soul!” she cried,
within herself, as she went into the kitchen to give her orders.
When the tray was ready, Forrest was told to take it up to his master’s
study.
Margaret, after a little hesitation, drawn by her strong anxiety,
followed, her light footsteps on the stairs and through the hall waking
no echo. As she approached the door of her father’s study, she heard
the words:
“Forrest, take this case of pistols downstairs and thoroughly clean
them; let no one see what you are about. Then have a boat--the soundest
in the fleet--ready to take me to the landing below the burial ground,
at Plover’s Point. Do you prepare to go with me, and--listen farther.
At about daybreak to-morrow, a gentleman will arrive hither. Be on the
watch, and quietly bring him to this room. Have breakfast served for us
here, and the boat ready for our departure when we rise from the table.
And mind, execute all these orders in strict privacy, and breathe no
word of their purport to any living creature. Do you understand?”
“I think I do, sir,” replied the astonished negro, who imperfectly
comprehended the affair.
Margaret knew all now. Her father had challenged her betrothed. The
only two beings whom she loved supremely on this earth, were in a few
hours hence to meet in mortal combat.
With a heart that seemed paralyzed within her suffocating bosom, she
crept, reeling, to her own chamber, and with the habitual instinct
of soliciting Divine counsel and assistance, she sank upon her knees
beside the bed. But no petition escaped her icy lips, or even took
the form of words in her paralyzed brain; her intellect seemed frozen
with horror; and her only form of prayer was the eloquent, mute
attitude, and the intense yearning of the suffering heart after the All
Merciful’s help and pity. She remained many minutes in this posture of
silent prayer, before the power of reflection and of language returned
to her, and even then her only cry was:
“Oh, God of pity, have mercy on them! Oh, God of strength, help and
save!”
Then still looking to the Lord for guidance, she tried to think what
was best to be done. It was now ten o’clock. Day would break at four.
There were but six hours of a night to do all, if anything could be
done. But what, indeed, could she do? Cut off by the bay from all the
rest of the world, and with fifteen miles of water between herself
and the nearest magistrate, what could the miserable maiden do to
prevent this duel between her father and her lover? To a religious
heart filled to overflowing with love and grief, and resolved upon
risking everything for the safety of the beloved, almost all things are
possible. Her first resolution was the nearly hopeless one of going
to her father and beseeching him to abandon his purpose. And if that
failed, she had in reverse a final, almost desperate determination. But
there was not a moment to be lost.
Still mentally invoking Divine aid, she arose and went to the door of
her father’s study. It was closed; but turning the latch very softly,
she entered unperceived.
Major Helmstedt sat at his table, so deeply absorbed in writing as
not to be conscious of her presence, although his face was toward the
door. That face was haggard with care, and those keen, strong eyes that
followed the rapid gliding of his pen over the paper were strained with
anxiety. So profound was his absorption in his work that the candles
remained unsnuffed and burning with a murky and lurid light, and the
cup of coffee on his table sat cold and untouched.
Margaret approached and looked over his shoulder.
It was his last will and testament that he was engaged in preparing.
The sight thrilled his daughter with a new horror. Meekly she crept
to his side and softly laid her hand upon his shoulder, and gently
murmured:
“Father, my dear father!”
He looked up suddenly, and in some confusion.
“What, Margo! not asleep yet, my girl? This is a late hour for young
eyes to be open. And yet I am glad that you came to bid me good-night
before retiring. It was affectionate of you, Margo,” he said, laying
down his pen, putting a blotter over his writing, and then drawing
her to his side in a close embrace--“yes, it was affectionate of you,
Margo; but ah, little one, no daughter loves as a true wife does. I
have been thinking of your mother, dear.”
“Think of her still, my father,” replied the maiden, in a voice of
thrilling solemnity.
Major Helmstedt’s countenance changed, but, controlling himself, he
pressed a kiss upon his daughter’s brow, and said:
“Well, well, I will not keep you up. God bless you, my child, though I
cannot. Good-night!” and with another kiss he would have dismissed her.
But, softly laying her hand upon his right hand, she asked, in a voice
thrilling with earnestness:
“Oh, my father, what is this that you are about to do?”
“Margaret, no prying into my private affairs--I will not suffer it!”
exclaimed Major Helmstedt, in disturbed voice.
“My father, there is no need of prying; I know all! Providence, for His
good purposes, has given the knowledge into my hands. Oh, did you think
that He would permit this terrible thing to go on uninterruptedly to
its bloody termination?”
“What mean you, girl?”
“Father, forgive me; but I overheard and understood your orders to
Forrest.”
“By my soul, Margaret, this is perfectly insufferable!” exclaimed Major
Helmstedt, starting up, and then sinking back into his chair.
But softly and suddenly Margaret dropped at his feet, clasped his
knees, and in a voice freighted with her heart’s insupportable anguish,
cried:
“Father! my father! hear me! hear me! hear your own lost Marguerite’s
heartbroken child, and do not make her orphaned and widowed in one
hour!”
“Orphaned and widowed in one hour!”
“Yes, yes, and most cruelly so, by the mutual act of her father and her
husband.”
“By her father and husband?”
“Yes, yes. Am I not Ralph Houston’s promised, sworn wife? Oh, my
father!”
“Death, girl! You call yourself his promised wife; you pray me to stay
my hand, nor avenge your wrongs, nor vindicate my own honor; you who
have been calumniated, insulted, and expelled from his house?”
“Not by him, father! not with his knowledge or consent! Oh, never!
never! My life, my soul, upon his stainless faith!”
“My daughter, rise and leave, I command you,” said Major Helmstedt,
giving his hand to assist her.
But she clung to his knees and groveled at his feet, crying:
“Father! father! pardon and hear me; hear me for my dead mother’s sake!
hear your Marguerite’s orphan girl! do not make her a widow before
she is a wife! My father, do not, oh, do not meet my betrothed in a
duel! He was your oldest friend, your brother-in-arms, your promised
son; he has stood by your side in many a well-fought battle; in camp
and field you two have shared together the dangers and glories of the
war. How can you meet as mortal foes? Crowned with victory, blessed
with peace, you were both coming home--you to your only daughter, he
to his promised bride--both to a devoted girl, who would have laid
out her life to make your mutual fireside happy; but whose heart you
are about to break! Oh, how can you do this most cruel deed? Oh! it
is so horrible! so horrible, that you two should thus meet. Dueling
is wicked, but this is worse than dueling! Murder is atrocious, but
this is worse than murder! This is parricide! this is the meeting of
a father and son, armed each against the other’s life! A father and a
son!”
“Son! no son or son-in-law of mine, if that is what you mean.”
“Father, father, do not say so! He is the sworn husband of your only
child. My hand, with your consent, was placed in his by my dying
mother’s hand. He clasped my fingers closely, promising never to
forsake me! A promise made to the living in the presence of the dying!
A promise that he has never retracted, and wishes never to retract. My
soul’s salvation upon Ralph Houston’s honor!”
“Margaret Helmstedt! put the last seal to my mortification, and tell me
that you love this man--this man whose family has spurned you!”
“I love him--for life, and death, and eternity!” she replied, in a tone
vibrating with earnestness.
“You speak your own degradation, miserable girl.”
“This is no time, Heaven knows, for the cowardice of girlish shame.
Father, I love him! For three long years I have believed myself his
destined wife. Long before our betrothal, as far back, or farther,
perhaps, than memory reaches, I loved him, and knew that he loved me,
and felt that in some strange way I belonged finally to him. Long,
long before I ever heard of courtship, betrothal, or marriage, I felt
in my deepest heart--and knew he felt it too--that Ralph was my final
proprietor and prince, that I, at last and forever, was his own little
Margaret--ay! as your Marguerite was yours, my father. And always and
ever, in all the changes of our life, in joy and in sorrow, in presence
and in absence, I seemed to repose sweetly in his heart as a little
bird in its nest, loving him too quietly and securely to know how
deeply and strongly. But oh, my father, it has remained for the anguish
of this day to teach me how, above all creatures, I love my promised
husband, even as my mother loved hers. The blow that reaches Ralph’s
heart would break my own. Father, I can conceive this globe upon which
we live, with all its seas and continents, its mountains, plains and
cities, its whole teeming life, collapsing and sinking out of sight
through space, and yet myself continuing to live, somewhere, in some
sphere of being; but, my father, I cannot conceive of Ralph’s death and
my own continued life, anywhere, as possible! for there, at that point,
all sinks into darkness, chaos, annihilation! Swift madness or death
would follow his loss! Oh, my father, say, is he not my husband? Oh, my
father, will you make your child a widow, a widow by her father’s hand?”
“Margaret, this is the very infatuation of passion!”
“Passion! Well, since grief and terror and despair have made my bosom
so stormy, you may call it so! else never should my lifelong, quiet,
contented attachment to Ralph be termed a passion, as if it were the
feverish caprice of yesterday. But oh, Heaven! all this time you are
not answering me. You do not promise that you will not meet him.
Father, I cannot die of grief, else had I long since been lying
beside your other Marguerite! But I feel that I may go mad, and that
soon. Already reason reels with dwelling on this impending duel! with
the thought that a few hours hence----! Father, if you would not have
your Marguerite’s child go mad, curse the author of her being, and lay
desperate hands upon her own life, forgo this duel! do not make her a
widowed bride!”
“Wretched girl, it were better that you were dead, for come what may,
Margaret, honor must be saved.”
“Then you will kill him! My father will kill my husband!”
“Why do you harp upon this subject forever? Shall I not equally risk my
own life?”
“No, no, no! he will never risk hurting a hair of your head. My life
and soul upon it, he will fire into the air! I know and feel what he
will do, here, deep in my heart. I know and feel what has been done.
Father, you met him in your blind rage, you gave him no chance of
explanation, but goaded and taunted, and drove him to the point of
accepting your challenge. You will meet him, you will murder him! and
I, oh, I shall go mad, and curse the father that gave me life, and him
death!” she said, starting up and wildly traversing the floor.
“‘Still waters run deep!’ Who would have supposed this quiet maiden
had inherited all Marguerite De Lancie’s strength of feeling?” thought
Major Helmstedt, as in a deep trouble he watched his daughter’s
distracted walk.
Suddenly, as that latent and final resolution, before mentioned,
recurred to her mind, she paused, and came up to her father’s side, and
said:
“Father, this thing must go no farther!”
“What mean you, Margaret?”
“This duel must not take place.”
“What absurdity--it must come off! Let all be lost so honor is saved!”
“Then listen well to me, my father,” she said, in the long, deep, quiet
tone of fixed determination; “this duel shall not take place!”
“Girl, you are mad. ‘Shall not?’”
“Shall not, my father!”
“What preposterous absurdity! Who will prevent it?”
“I will!”
“You! Come, that is best of all. How do you propose to do it, fair
daughter?”
“I shall lay the whole matter before the nearest magistrate!”
“Poor girl, if I did not pity you so deeply, I should smile at your
folly. Why, Margaret, the nearest magistrate is fifteen miles off. It
is now eleven o’clock at night, and the proposed meeting takes place at
five in the morning!”
“Then the more reason for haste, my father, to save you from a crime. I
will order a boat and depart immediately,” said Margaret, going to the
bell-rope and giving it a sudden peremptory pull.
“Oh, then I see that this will not do. You are desperate, you are
dangerous, you must be restrained,” said Major Helmstedt, rising and
approaching his daughter.
“Father, what mean you now? You would not--you, a gentleman, an
officer, would not lay violent hands on your daughter?” she said,
shrinking away in amazement.
“In an exigency of this kind my daughter leaves me no alternative.”
“No, no! You would not use force to hinder me in the discharge of a
sacred duty?”
“Margaret, no more words. Come to your room,” he said, taking her by
the arm, and with gentle force conducting her to the door of her own
chamber, in which he locked her securely.
Knowing resistance to be both vain and unbecoming, Margaret had, for
the time, quietly submitted. She remained sitting motionless in the
chair in which he had placed her, until she heard his retreating
footsteps pause at the door of his study, and heard him enter and lock
the door behind him.
Then she arose and stepped lightly over the carpeted floor, and looked
from the front window out upon the night.
A dark, brilliant starlight night, with a fresh wind that swayed the
branches of the trees.
Almost omnipotent is the religious heart; willing to sink all things
for the salvation of the beloved.
The means of escape, and of preventing the duel, were quickly devised
by her suggestive mind. Her chamber was on the second floor front.
A grape vine of nearly twenty years’ growth reached her window, and
climbed up its side and over its top. The intertwined and knotted
branches, thick as a man’s wrist, and strong as a cable, presented a
means of descent safe and easy as that of a staircase. And once free of
the house, the course of the brave girl was clear.
There was no time to be lost. It was now half-past eleven o’clock. The
household, except her father and the servant whom he had ordered to
watch with him, was wrapped in sleep. Her father she knew to be deeply
engaged in writing his will in the study. Forrest she supposed to be
employed in cleaning the pistols in the back kitchen.
There was nothing then to interrupt her escape but the dogs, who before
recognizing would surely break out upon her. But there was little to
dread from that circumstance. The barking of the dogs was no unusual
event of the night. Any noise in nature, the footstep of a negro
walking out, the spring of a startled squirrel, the falling of a nut or
a pine cone, was frequently enough to arouse their jealous vigilance,
and provoke a canine concert. Only when the barking was very prolonged
was attention usually aroused. Of this contingency there was no danger.
They would probably break out in a furious onslaught, recognize her and
be still.
But there was another serious difficulty. Margaret was very feeble;
weeks of mental anguish, with the consequent loss of appetite and
loss of sleep, had so exhausted her physical nature that not all the
proverbial power of the mind over the body, the spirit over the flesh,
could impart to her sufficient strength for an undertaking, that, in
her stronger days, would have taxed her energies to the utmost. A
restorative was absolutely necessary. A few drops of distilled lavender
water--a favorite country cordial--gave her a fictitious strength.
Then tying on her black velvet hood, and her short black camlet riding
cloak, she prepared to depart. First, she bolted the door on the inside
that her father might not enter her room to ascertain her absence. Then
she softly hoisted the window, and with perfect ease crossed the low
sill and stepped upon the friendly vine, where she remained standing
while she let down the window and closed the blinds.
Thus having restored everything to its usual order, she commenced her
descent. Holding to the vines, stepping cautiously, and letting herself
down slowly, she at length reached the ground safely.
Now for the dogs. But they were quiet. Their quick instincts were truer
than her fears, and she passed on undisturbed.
How still and brilliant the starlight night. No sound but the sighing
of the wind in the trees, and the trilling of the insects that wake at
eve to chirp till day; and all distinctly, yet darkly visible, like a
scene clearly drawn in Indian ink upon a gray ground.
She passed down through the garden, the orchard, and the stubble field
to the beach, where her little sailboat, _The Pearl Shell_, lay.
For the trip that she contemplated of fifteen miles up the mouth of
the river, a rowboat would have been far the safer. But Margaret was
too weak for such prolonged labor as the management of the oar for two
or three hours must necessitate. The sailboat would only require the
trifling exertion of holding the tiller, and occasionally shifting the
sails. Happily, the tide was in and just about to turn; the boat was,
therefore, afloat, though chained to the boathouse, and so needed no
exertion to push her off. Margaret went on board, untied the tiller,
hoisted the sails, unlocked the chain and cast loose. She had but time
to spring and seize the tiller before the wind filled the sails and the
boat glided from the shore.
So far all had gone marvelously well. Let who would discover her escape
now, she was safe from pursuit. Let who would follow, she could not
be overtaken. Her boat was beyond measure the swiftest sailer of the
island fleet. True, before this fresh wind the boat might capsize,
especially as there was no one to manage it except herself, who to
shift the sails must sometimes let go the tiller. But Margaret was
without selfish, personal fear; her purpose was high, and had been
so far providentially favored; she would, therefore, believe in no
accidents, but trust in God.
And what a strange scene was this, in which the solitary girl-mariner
was out upon the lonely sea.
The broad canopy of heaven, of that deep, dark, intense blue of
cloudless night, was thickly studded with myriads of stars, whose
reflection in the mirror of the sea seemed other living stars
disporting themselves amid the waves. Far away over the wide waters,
darker lines upon the dark sea suggested the distant shores and
headlands of the main. Straight before her flying boat, two black
points, miles apart, indicated the entrance to the mouth of the Potomac
River. She steered for the lower, or Smith’s Point.
Under happier circumstances, the lonely night ride over the dark waters
would have charmed the fancy of the fearless and adventurous girl. Now
her only emotion was one of anxiety and haste. Taking Smith’s Point
for her “polar star,” she gave all her sail to the wind. The boat flew
over the water. I dare scarcely say in how marvelously short a time she
reached this cape. This was the longest part of her voyage.
Hugging the Northumberland coast, she soon reached and doubled Plover’s
Point, and ran up into the little cove, the usual landing place, and
pushed her boat upon the sands.
She next sprang out, secured the boat to a post, and began to climb the
steep bank, that was thickly covered with a growth of pines, from which
the place took its name.
Here danger of another and more appalling form threatened her. Fugitive
slaves, than whom a more dangerous banditti can nowhere be found, were
known to infest this coast, where by day they hid in caves and holes,
and by night prowled about like wild beasts in search of food or prey.
More than to meet the wildcat or the wolf, that were not yet banished
from these woods, the maiden dreaded to encounter one of these famished
and desperate human beasts! Lifting her heart in prayer to God for
assistance, she passed courageously on her dark and dangerous way;
starting at the sound of her own light footsteps upon some crackling,
fallen branch, and holding her breath at the slight noise made by the
moving of a rabbit or a bird in the foliage. At last she reached the
summit of the wooded hill, and came out of the pine thicket on to the
meadow. Then there was a fence to climb, a field to cross, and a gate
to open before she reached the wooded lawn fronting the house. There
the last peril, that of the watchdogs, awaited her. One mastiff barked
furiously as she approached the gate; as she opened it, the whole pack
broke in full cry upon her.
She paused and stood still, holding out one hand, and saying, gently:
“Why, Ponto! Why, Fido! What is the matter, good boys?”
The two foremost recognized and fawned upon her, and under their
protection, as it were, she walked on through the excited pack, that,
one by one, dropped gently under her influence, and walked quietly by
her side.
So she reached the front of the house, passed up the piazza, and rang
the bell. Peal upon peal she rung before she could make any one in that
quiet house hear.
At last, however, an upper window was thrown up, and the voice of Dr.
Hartley asked:
“Who’s there?”
“It is I, Dr. Hartley. It is I, Margaret Helmstedt! come to you on a
matter of life and death!”
“You! You, Margaret! You, at this hour! I am lost in wonder!”
“Oh, come down, quickly, quickly, or it will be too late!”
Evidently believing this to be an imminent necessity for his
professional services, the doctor drew in his head, let down the
window, hastily donned his apparel, and came down to admit his visitor.
Leading her into the sitting-room, he said:
“Now, my dear, who is ill? And what, in the name of all the saints,
was the necessity of your coming out at this time of night with the
messenger?”
“Dr. Hartley, look at me well. I came with no messenger. I left the
island at midnight, and crossed the bay, and came up the river alone.”
“Good Heaven, Miss Helmstedt! Margaret! what is it you tell me? What
has happened?” he asked, terrified at the strange words and the ghastly
looks of the girl.
“Dr. Hartley, my father has challenged Ralph Houston. They meet this
morning, in the woods above the family burial ground. I escaped from
the room in which my father had locked me, and came to give information
to the authorities, that they may, if possible, stop this duel. What
I desire particularly of your kindness is that you will go with me to
Squire Johnson’s, that I may lodge the necessary complaint. I regret
to ask you to take this trouble; but I myself do not know the way to
Squire Johnson’s house.”
“Margaret, my dear, I am exceedingly grieved to hear what you have told
me. How did this happen? What was the occasion of it?”
“Oh, sir, spare me! in mercy spare me! There is, indeed, no time to
tell you now. What we are to do should be done quickly. They meet very,
very early this morning.”
“Very well, Margaret. There is no necessity for your going to Squire
Johnson’s, for, indeed, you are too much exhausted for the ride. And I
am now suffering too severely with rheumatism to bear the journey. But
I will do better. I will put a servant on a swift horse, and dispatch a
note that will bring Mr. Johnson hither. We can go hence to the dueling
ground and prevent the meeting. Will not that be best?”
“So that we are in time--anything, sir.”
Dr. Hartley then went out to rouse the boy whom he purposed to send,
and after a few moments returned, and while the latter was saddling
the horse, he wrote the note, so that in ten minutes the messenger was
dispatched on his errand.
Day was now breaking, and the house servants were all astir. One of
them came in to make the fire in the parlor fireplace, and Dr. Hartley
gave orders for an early breakfast to be prepared for his weary guest.
Missing Clare from her customary morning haunts, Margaret ventured to
inquire if she were in good health.
At the mention of his daughter’s name, Dr. Hartley recollected now, for
the first time, that there might be some good reason for treating his
young visitor with rebuking coldness, and he answered, with distant
politeness, that Clare had gone to pay her promised visit to her
friends at Fort Warburton.
Margaret bore this change of manner in her host with her usual patient
resignation. And when the cloth was laid, and breakfast was placed upon
the table, and the doctor, with professional authority rather than with
hospitable kindness, insisted that the exhausted girl should partake of
some refreshment, she meekly complied, and forced herself to swallow a
cup of coffee, though she could constrain nature no farther.
They had scarcely risen from the table, before the messenger returned
with the news that Squire Johnson had left home for Washington City,
and would be absent for several days.
“Oh, Heaven of heavens! What now can be done?” exclaimed Margaret, in
anguish.
“Nothing can be done by compulsion, of course, but something may be
accomplished by persuasion. I will go with you, Miss Helmstedt, to the
ground, and use every friendly exertion to effect an adjustment of the
difficulties between these antagonists,” said Dr. Hartley.
“Oh, then, sir, let us hasten at once. No time is to be lost!” cried
Margaret, in the very extremity of anxiety.
“It is but a short distance, Miss Helmstedt. Doubtless we shall be in
full time,” replied the doctor, buttoning up, his coat and taking down
his hat from the peg.
Margaret had already, with trembling fingers, tied on her hood.
They immediately left the house.
“What time did you say they met, Miss Helmstedt?”
“I said, ‘very early,’ sir. Alas, I do not know the time to the hour. I
fear, I fear--oh, let us hasten, sir.”
“It is but five o’clock, Margaret, and the distance is short,” said the
doctor, beginning to pity her distress.
“Oh, God! perhaps it was at five they were to meet. Oh, hasten!”
Their way was first through the lawn, then through the stubble field,
then into the copse wood that gradually merged in the thick forest
behind the burial ground.
“Do you know the exact spot of the purposed meeting, Margaret?”
inquired the doctor.
“Oh, no, sir, I do not. I only know that my father gave orders for the
boat to be in readiness to take him (and his second, of course) to
the beach below the burial ground at this point. Now, as the beach is
narrow, and the burial ground too sacred a place for such a purpose, I
thought of these woods above it.”
“Exactly; and there is a natural opening, a sort of level glade, on the
top of this wooded hill, that I think likely to be the place selected.
We will push forward to that spot.”
They hurried on. A walk of five minutes brought them to within the
sound of voices, that convinced them that they were near the dueling
ground.
A few more rapid steps led them to a small, level, open glade, on the
summit of the wooded hill.
Oh, Heaven of heavens! What a sight to meet the eyes of a daughter and
a promised wife!
The ground was already marked off. In the drawing of the lots it seemed
that the best position had fallen to her father, for he stood with his
back to the rising sun, which shone full into the face of Ralph, at the
same time dazzling his eyes, and making him the fairest mark for the
best marksman in the country.
At right angles with the principals stood the seconds, one of them
having a handkerchief held in his hand, while the other prepared to
give the word.
Margaret had not seen her betrothed for three years, and now, oh, agony
insupportable, to meet him thus!
So absorbed were the duelists in the business upon which they met,
and so quietly had she and her escort stolen upon the scene, that the
antagonists had perceived no addition to their party, but went on with
their bloody purpose.
At the very entrance of the newcomers upon the scene, the second of
Major Helmstedt gave the word:
“One--two--three--fire!” Frank Houston dropped the handkerchief, Ralph
fired into the air, and Margaret, springing forward, struck up the
pistol of her father, so that it was discharged harmlessly into the
upper branches of an old tree.
All this transpired in a single instant of time, so suddenly and
unexpectedly, that until it was over no one knew what had happened.
Then followed a scene of confusion difficult or impossible to describe.
Major Helmstedt was the first to speak. Shaking Margaret’s hand from
his arm, he demanded, in a voice of concentrated rage:
“Miss Helmstedt, what is the meaning of this? How durst you come
hither?”
Margaret, dropping upon her knees between the combatants and lifting up
both arms, exclaimed:
“Oh, father! father! Oh, Ralph! Ralph! bury your bullets in this broken
heart if you will, but do not point your weapons against each other!”
“Margaret, my beloved!” began Ralph Houston, springing to raise her,
but before he could effect his purpose, Major Helmstedt had caught up
his daughter, and with extended hands, exclaimed:
“Off, sir! How durst you? Touch her not! Address her not at your peril!
Dr. Hartley, since you attended this self-willed girl hither, pray do
me the favor to lead her from the scene. Gentlemen, seconds, I look to
you to restore order, that the business of our meeting may proceed.”
“Father, father!” cried Margaret, clasping his knees in an agony of
prayer.
“Degenerate child, release me and begone! Dr. Hartley, will you relieve
me of this girl?”
“Major Helmstedt, your daughter and myself came hither in the hope of
mediating between yourself and your antagonist.”
“Mediating! Sir, there is no such thing as mediation in a quarrel like
this! Since you brought my daughter hither, will you take her off, sir,
I ask you?” thundered Major Helmstedt, striving to unrivet the clinging
arms of his child.
“Father, father! Hear me, hear me!” she cried.
“Peace, girl, I command you. Fool that you are, not to see that this is
a mortal question, that can only be resolved in a death meeting between
us. Girl, girl, girl! are you a Helmstedt? Do you know that the family
of this man have made dishonoring charges upon you? Charges that, by
the Heaven above, can be washed out only in life’s blood? Take her
away, Hartley.”
“Father, father! Oh, God! the charges! the charges that they have made!
they are true! they are true!” cried Margaret, clinging to his arms,
while she hid her face upon his bosom.
Had a bombshell exploded in their midst, it could not have produced a
severer or more painful shock.
Ralph Houston, after the first agonized start and shudder, drew nearer
to her, and paused, pale as death, to listen further, if, perchance, he
had heard aright.
All the others, after their first surprise, stood as if struck statue
still.
Major Helmstedt remained nailed to the ground, a form of iron. Deep
and unearthly was the sound of his voice, as, lifting the head of his
daughter from his breast, he said:
“Miss Helmstedt, look me in the face!”
She raised her agonized eyes to his countenance.
All present looked and listened. No one thought by word or gesture of
interfering between the father and daughter.
“Miss Helmstedt,” he began, in the low, deep, stern tone of
concentrated passion, “what was that which you said just now?”
“I said, my father, in effect, that you must not fight; that your cause
is accurst; that the charges brought against me are--true!”
“You tell me that----”
“The charges brought against me are true!” she said, in a strange,
ringing voice, every tone of which was audible to all present.
Had the fabled head of the Medusa, with all its fell powers, arisen
before the assembled party, it could not have produced a more appalling
effect. Each stood as if turned to stone by her words.
The father and daughter remained confronted like beings charged with
the mortal and eternal destiny of each other. At length Margaret,
unable to bear the scrutiny of his fixed gaze, dropped her head upon
her bosom, buried her burning face in her hands, and turned away.
Then Major Helmstedt, keeping his eyes still fixed with a devouring
gaze upon her, slowly raised, extended and dropped his hand heavily
upon her shoulder, clutched, turned, and drew her up before him.
“Again! let fall your hands; raise your head; look me in the face,
minion!”
She obeyed, dropping her hands, and lifting her face, crimsoned with
blushes, to his merciless gaze.
“Repeat--for I can scarce believe the evidence of my own senses! The
charges brought against you, by the Houstons, are----”
“True! They are true!” she replied, in a voice of utter despair.
“Then, for three years past, ever since your betrothal to Mr. Ralph
Houston, you have been in secret correspondence with a strange young
man, disapproved by your protectress?” asked Major Helmstedt, in a
sepulchral tone.
“I have--I have!”
“And you have met this young man more than once in private?”
“Yes, yes!” she gasped, with a suffocating sob.
“On the day of the festival, and of the landing of the British upon our
island, you passed several hours alone with this person in the woods?”
A deprecating wave of the hand and another sob was her only reply.
“Once, at least, you received this man in your private apartment at
Buzzard’s Bluff?”
A gesture of affirmation and of utter despondency was her answer.
“The night of that same visit, you secretly left the room of your
protectors for an unexplained absence of several days, some of which
were passed in the company of this person?”
For all reply, she raised and clasped her hands and dropped them down
before her, and let her head fall upon her bosom with an action full of
irremediable despair.
Her father’s face was dark with anguish.
“Speak, minion!” he said, “these things must not be left to
conjecture; they must be clearly understood. Speak! answer!”
“I did,” she moaned, in an expiring voice, as her head sank lower upon
her breast, and her form cowered under the weight of an overwhelming
shame and sorrow.
And well she might. Here, in the presence of men, in the presence of
her father and her lover, she was making admissions, the lightest one
of which, unexplained, was sufficient to brand her woman’s brow with
ineffaceable and eternal dishonor!
Her lover’s head had sunk upon his breast, and he stood with folded
arms, set lips, downcast eyes and impassable brow, upon which none
could read his thoughts.
Her father’s face had grown darker and sterner, as he questioned and
she answered, until now it was terrible to look upon.
A pause had followed her last words, and was broken at length by
Major Helmstedt, who, in a voice, awful in the stillness and depth of
suppressed passion, said:
“Wretched girl! why do you linger here? Begone! and never let me see
you more!”
“Father, father! have mercy, have mercy on your poor child!” she
exclaimed, clasping her hands and dropping at his feet.
“Minion! never dare to desecrate my name, or pollute my sight again.
Begone!” he exclaimed, spurning her kneeling form and turning away.
“Oh, father, father! for the sweet love of the Saviour!” she cried,
throwing her arms around his knees and clinging to him.
“Wretch! outcast! release me, avoid my presence, or I shall be driven
to destroy you, wanton!” he thundered, giving way to fury, and
shaking her as a viper from her clinging hold upon his feet; “wanton!
courtez----”
But ere that word of last reproach could be completed, swift as
lightning she flew to his bosom, clung about his neck, placed her hand
over his lips to arrest his further speech, and gazing intensely,
fiercely into his eyes--into his soul, exclaimed:
“Father, do not finish your sentence. Unless you wish me to drop dead
before you, do not. As you hope for salvation, never apply that name
to--her daughter.”
“Her daughter!” he retorted, violently, shaking her off, until she
fell collapsed and exhausted at his feet--“her daughter! Changeling,
no daughter of hers or of mine are you. She would disown and curse you
from her grave! and----”
“Oh, mother, mother! oh, mother, mother!” groaned the poor girl,
writhing and groveling like a crushed worm on the ground.
“And I,” he continued, heedless of her agony, as he stooped, clutched
her arm, jerked her with a spring upon her feet, and held her tightly
confronting him.
“I--there was a time when I was younger, that had any woman of my name
or blood made the shameful confessions that you have made this day, I
would have slain her on the instant with this, my right hand. But age
somewhat cools the head, and now I only spurn you--thus!”
And tightening his grasp upon her shoulder, he whirled her off with
such violence that she fell at several yards distant, stunned and
insensible upon the ground.
Then, followed by his second, he strode haughtily from the place.
Dr. Hartley, who had remained standing in amazement through the latter
part of this scene, now hurried to the assistance of the swooning girl.
But Ralph Houston, shaking off the dreadful apathy that had bound his
faculties, hastened to intercept him. Kneeling beside the prostrate
form, he lifted and placed it in an easier position. Then, turning to
arrest the doctor’s steps, he said:
“Before you come nearer to her, tell me this: What do you believe of
her?”
“That she is a fallen girl,” replied Dr. Hartley.
“Then, no nearer on your life and soul,” said Ralph, lifting his hand
to bar the doctor’s further approach.
“What do you mean, Captain Houston?”
“That she still wears the betrothal ring I placed upon her finger.
That I am, as yet, her affianced husband. And, by that name, I claim
the right to protect her in this, her bitter extremity; to defend her
bruised and broken heart from the wounds of unkind eyes! Had you had
faith in her, charity for her, I should have accepted, with thanks,
your help. As it is, you have none; do not let her awake to find a
hostile countenance bending over her!”
“As you please, sir. But, remember, that if the assistance of a
physician is absolutely required, my services, and my home also, await
the needs of Marguerite De Lancie’s daughter,” said Dr. Hartley,
turning to depart.
Frank also, at a sign from his brother, withdrew.
Ralph was alone with Margaret. He raised her light form, shuddering,
amid all his deeper distress, to feel how light it was, and bore her
down the wooded hill, to the great spreading oak, under which was the
green mound of her mother’s last sleeping place.
He laid her down so that her head rested on this mound as on a pillow,
and then went to a spring near by to bring water, with which, kneeling,
he bathed her face.
Long and assiduous efforts were required before she recovered from that
mortal swoon.
When at length, with a deep and shuddering sigh, and a tremor that ran
through all her frame, she opened her eyes, she found Ralph Houston
kneeling by her side, bending with solicitous interest over her.
With only a dim and partial recollection of some great agony passed,
she raised her eyes and stretched forth her arms, murmuring, in tender,
pleading tones:
“Ralph, my friend, my savior, you do not believe me guilty? You know me
so thoroughly; you always trusted me; you are sure that I am innocent?”
“Margaret,” he said, in a voice of the deepest pain, “I pillowed your
head here above your mother’s bosom; had I not believed you guiltless
of any deeper sin than inconstancy of affection, I should not have laid
you in this sacred place.”
“Inconstancy! Ralph?”
“Fear nothing, poor girl! it is not for me to judge or blame you. You
were but a child when our betrothal took place; you could not have
known your own heart; I was twelve years your senior, and I should have
had more wisdom, justice, and generosity than to have bound the hand
of a child of fourteen to that of a man of twenty-six. We have been
separated for three years. You are now but seventeen, and I am in my
thirtieth year. You have discovered your mistake, and I suffer a just
punishment. It is natural.”
“Oh, my God! my God! my cup overflows with bitterness!” moaned the poor
maiden, in a voice almost inaudible from anguish.
“Compose yourself, dear Margaret. I do not reproach you in the least;
I am here to serve you as I best may; to make you happy, if it be
possible. And the first step to be taken is to restore to you your
freedom.”
“Oh, no! Oh, Lord of mercy, no! no! no!” she exclaimed, in an agony of
prayer; and then, in sudden self-consciousness, she flushed all over
her face and neck with maiden shame, and became suddenly silent.
“Dear Margaret,” said Ralph, in a tone of infinite tenderness and
compassion, “you have suffered so much that you are scarcely sane. You
hardly know what you would have. Our betrothal must, of course, be
annulled. You must be free to wed this lover of your choice. I hope
that he is, in some measure, worthy of you; nay, since you love him, I
must believe that he is so.”
“Oh, Ralph, Ralph! Oh, Ralph, Ralph!” she cried, wringing her hands.
“Margaret, what is the meaning of this?”
“I have no lover except you. I never wronged you in thought, or word,
or deed; never, never, never!”
“Dear Margaret, I have not charged you with wronging me.”
“But I have no lover; do you hear, Ralph? I never have had one! I never
should have so desecrated our sacred engagement.”
“Poor Margaret, you are distracted! Much grief has made you mad! You no
longer know what you say.”
“Oh, I do, I do! never believe but I know every word that I speak.
And I say that my heart has never wandered for an instant from its
allegiance to yourself! And listen farther, Ralph,” she said, sinking
upon her knees beside that grave, and raising her hands and eyes to
heaven with the most impressive solemnity, “listen while I swear this
by the heart of her who sleeps beneath this sod, and by my hopes of
meeting her in heaven! that he with whom my name has been so wrongfully
connected was no lover of mine--could be no lover of mine!”
“Hold, Margaret! Do not forswear yourself even in a fit of partial
derangement. Rise, and recall to yourself some circumstances that
occurred immediately before you became insensible, and which,
consequently, may have escaped your memory. Recollect, poor girl, the
admissions you made to your father,” said Ralph, taking her hand and
gently constraining her to rise.
“Oh, Heaven! and you believe--you believe----”
“Your own confessions, Margaret, nothing more; for had an angel from
heaven told the things of you that you have stated of yourself, I
should not have believed him!”
“Oh, my mother! Oh, my God!” she cried, in a tone of such deep misery,
that, through all his own trouble, Ralph deeply pitied and gently
answered her.
“Be at ease. I do not reproach you, my child.”
“But you believe. Oh, you believe----”
“Your own statement concerning yourself, dear Margaret; no more nor
less.”
“Believe no more. Not a hair’s breadth more. Scarcely so much. And
draw from that no inferences. On your soul, draw no inferences against
me; for they would be most unjust. For I am yours; only yours; wholly
yours. I have never, never had any purpose, wish, or thought at
variance with your claims upon me.”
“You must pardon me, Margaret, if I cannot reconcile your present
statement with the admissions lately made to your father. Allow me to
bring them to your memory.”
“Oh, Heaven, have mercy on me!” she cried, covering her face.
“Remember, I do not reproach you with them; I only recall them to
your mind. You have been in secret correspondence with this young
man for three years past; you have given him private meetings; you
have passed hours alone in the woods with him; you have received him
in your chamber; you have been abroad for days in his company; you
have confessed the truth of all this; and yet you declare that he is
not, and cannot be a lover of yours. Margaret, Margaret, how can you
expect me, for a moment, to credit the amazing inconsistency of your
statements?”
While he spoke, she stood before him in an agony of confusion and
distress, her form cowering; her face sunk upon her breast; her eyes
shunning his gaze; her face, neck, and bosom crimsoned with fiery
blushes; her hands writhed together; her whole aspect one of conscious
guilt, convicted crime, and overwhelming shame.
The anguish stamped upon the brow of her lover was terrible to behold.
Yet he governed his emotions, and compelled his voice to be steady in
saying:
“Dear Margaret, if in any way you can reconcile these
inconsistencies--speak!”
Speak. Ay, she might have done so. One word from her lips would have
sufficed to lift the cloud of shame from her brow, and to crown her
with an aureola of glory; would have averted the storm of calamity
gathering darkly over her head, and restored her, a cherished daughter,
to the protecting arms of her father; an honored maiden to the esteem
of friends and companions; a beloved bride to the sheltering bosom of
her bridegroom. A word would have done this; yet that word, which could
have lifted the shadow from her own heart and life, must have bid it
settle, dark and heavy, upon the grave of the dumb, defenseless dead
beneath her feet. And the word remained unspoken.
“I can die for her; but I cannot betray her. I can live dishonored
for her sake; but I cannot consign her memory to reproach,” said the
devoted daughter to her own bleeding and despairing heart.
“Margaret, can you explain the meaning of these letters, these meetings
in the woods, on the river, in your own chamber?”
“Alas! I cannot. I can only endure,” she moaned, in a voice replete
with misery, as her head sunk lower upon her breast, and her form
cowered nearer the ground, as if crushed by the insupportable weight of
humiliation.
It was not in erring human wisdom to look upon her thus, to listen to
her words, and not believe her a fallen angel!
And yet she was innocent. More than innocent. Devoted, heroic, holy.
But, notwithstanding this, and her secret consciousness of this,
how could she--in her tender youth, with her maiden delicacy and
sensitiveness to reproach--how could she stand in this baleful
position, and not appear overwhelmed by guilt and shame?
There was a dread pause of some minutes, broken at length by Ralph, who
said:
“Margaret, will you return me that betrothal ring?”
She answered:
“You placed it on my finger, Ralph! Will you also take it off? I was
passive then; I will be passive now.”
Ralph raised the pale hand in his own and tried to draw off the
ring. But since, three years before, the token had been placed upon
the little hand of the child, that hand had grown, and it was found
impossible to draw the ring over the first joint.
Ralph Houston, unwilling to give her physical pain, resisted in his
efforts, saying quietly, as he bowed and left her:
“The betrothal ring refuses to leave your finger, Margaret. Well,
good-morning!”
A smile, holy with the light of faith, hope, and love, dawned within
her soul and irradiated her brow. In a voice, solemn, thrilling with
prophetic joy, she said:
“The ring remains with me! I hail it as the bow of promise! In this
black tempest, the one shining star!”