The school to which Margaret was sent was that of the Misses Prescott,
in Groton, Massachusetts. And her experience there has been described
with touching truthfulness by herself, in the story of "Mariana."[A]
'At first her school-mates were captivated with her ways; her
love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion
and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a
time, charming.
'But after a while, they tired of her. She could never be
depended on to join in their plans, yet she expected them,
to follow out hers with their whole strength. She was very
loving, even infatuated in her own affections, and exacted
from those who had professed any love for her the devotion she
was willing to bestow.
'Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character,
and a love of solitude, which made her at times wish to retire
apart, and at these times she would expect to be entirely
understood, and let alone, yet to be welcomed back when she
returned. She did not thwart others in their humors, but she
never doubted of great indulgence from them.
'Some singular habits she had, which, when new, charmed, but,
after acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had
by nature the same habit and power of excitement that is
described in the spinning dervishes of the East. Like them
she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her
own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great
action. Pausing, she would declaim, verses of others, or her
own, or act many parts, with strange catchwords and burdens,
that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy,
sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearers with
laughter, sometimes to melt them to tears. When her power
began to languish, she would spin again till fired to
re-commence her singular drama, into which she wove figures
from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and
the dignitaries she sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to
life, unknown to heaven or earth.
'This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It
usually came on in the evening, and often spoiled her sleep.
She would wake in the night, and cheat her restlessness by
inventions that teased, while they sometimes diverted her
companions.
'She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case
did somewhat alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the
profound ignorance as to this peculiar being, usual in the
overseeing of the young. They consulted a physician, who said
she would outgrow it, and prescribed a milk diet.
'Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated
nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow
routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means
to break in upon it. She had a taste--which would have seemed
ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some awe of her,
from the touch of genius and power that never left her--for
costume and fancy dresses. There was always some sash twisted
about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of
her hair and dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared
not let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodelling,
whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the moment she
was in the free air.
'At last a vent was assured for her in private theatricals.
Play followed play, and in these and the rehearsals, she found
entertainment congenial with her. The principal parts, as
a matter of course, fell to her lot; most of the good
suggestions and arrangements came from her: and, for a time,
she ruled mostly, and shone triumphant.
'During these performances, the girls had heightened their
bloom with artificial red; this was delightful to them, it was
something so out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were
over, kept her carmine saucer on the dressing-table, and put
on her blushes, regularly as the morning. When stared and
jeered at, she at first said she did it because she thought it
made her look pretty; but, after a while, she became petulant
about it,--would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept up
the habit.
'This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world
in general, more than vice or malignity. They talked it over
among themselves till they were wrought up to a desire of
punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing, but so often
provoking non-conformist. And having obtained leave of the
mistress, they laid, with great glee, a plan, one evening,
which was to be carried into execution next day at dinner.
'Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the
meal-time ceremonial,--so long, so tiresome, she found it, to
be seated at a certain moment, and to wait while each one
was served, at so large a table, where there was scarcely any
conversation; and from day to day it became more heavy to
sit there, or go there at all; often as possible she excused
herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was
hardly ever ready when the dinner-bell rang.
'To-day the summons found her on the balcony, but gazing on
the beautiful prospect. I have heard her say afterwards, that
she had scarcely in her life been so happy,--and she was one
with whom happiness was a still rapture. It was one of the
most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white clouds
empurpled the distant hills for a few moments, only to leave
them more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in
the softest breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same
hue of pure contentment was in the heart of Mariana.
'Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner-bell. At first
rose her usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the
_must_, which daily life can always enforce, even upon the
butterflies and birds, came, and she walked reluctantly to
her room. She merely changed her dress, and never thought of
adding the artificial rose to her cheek.
'When she took her seat in the dining-hall, and was asked if
she would be helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person
who asked her was deeply rouged, with a bright glaring
spot, perfectly round, on either cheek. She looked at the
next,--same apparition! She then slowly passed her eyes down
the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile
distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once, she
deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every
schoolmate in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The
teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the
joke. The servants could not suppress a titter.
'When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster
Hall,--when the Methodist preacher walked through a line
of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or rotten
egg,--they had some preparation for the crisis, though it
might be very difficult to meet it with an impassible brow.
Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the
midst of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her
disgrace.
'She had ruled like a queen, in the midst of her companions;
she had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded
them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a popular
favorite might not be loved. Now she felt that she had been
but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts
she never had doubted.
'Yet the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the
kind of spirit which, in a better cause, had made the Roman
matron truly say of her death-wound, "It is not painful,
Poetus." She did not blench,--she did not change countenance.
She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She made
remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes.
'The wrath of the foe, of course, rose higher, and the moment
they were freed from the restraints of the dining room, they
all ran off, gayly calling, and sarcastically laughing, with
backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.
'Alone she went to her room, locked the door, and threw
herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had
sometimes threatened her life, in earlier childhood, but of
later years she had outgrown them. School-hours came, and she
was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no
answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter
was their penitence, and that of her companions, at the state
in which they found her. For some hours terrible anxiety was
felt, but at last nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a
deep slumber.
'From this Mariana arose an altered being. She made no reply
to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the
grave and kind, but undiscerning, comments of her teacher. She
did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned
dart sank deeply in. This was the thought which stung her
so:--"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial,
to take my part? not one who refused to take part against me?"
Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time,
rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered heart.
Beyond the sense of burning resentment at universal perfidy,
she could not get. And Mariana, born for love, now hated all
the world.
'The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct
and appearance, bore no such construction to the careless
observer. Her gay freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her
invention. Her dress was uniform, her manner much subdued. Her
chief interest seemed to be now in her studies, and in music.
Her companions she never sought; but they, partly from uneasy,
remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much
better now that she did not puzzle and oppress them, sought
her continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her
life, the only stain upon the history of Mariana.
'They talked to her, as girls having few topics naturally
do, of one another. Then the demon rose within her, and
spontaneously, without design, generally without words of
positive falsehood, she became a genius of discord amongst
them. She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy which a
wise, true word from a third person will often quench forever;
and by a glance, or seemingly light reply, she planted the
seeds of dissension, till there was scarcely a peaceful
affection, or sincere intimacy, in the circle where she lived,
and could not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to
that of the others as fire to clay.
'It was at this time that I came to the school, and first
saw Mariana. Me she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental
child, who, in my early ill health, had been indulged in
reading novels, till I had no eyes for the common. It was not,
however, easy to approach her. Did I offer to run and fetch
her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, and would
rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn
over for her the leaves of the music-book as she played. Did I
approach my stool to her feet, she moved away as if to give me
room. The bunch of wild flowers, which I timidly laid beside
her plate, was left untouched. After some weeks, my desire to
attract her notice really preyed upon me; and one day, meeting
her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and, kissing her
hand, cried "O, Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love
me a little!" But my idol snatched away her hand, and laughing
wildly, ran into her room. After that day, her manner to me
was not only cold, but repulsive, and I felt myself scorned.
'Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it
became obvious that something more than common was brewing.
Dismay and mystery were written in many faces of the older
girls; much whispering was going on in corners.
'In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay;
and, in a grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer
charges to be made against her.
'Mariana stood up and leaned against the chimney-piece. Then
eight of the older girls came forward, and preferred
against her charges,--alas! too well founded, of calumny and
falsehood.
'At first, she defended herself with self-possession and
eloquence. But when she found she could no more resist the
truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head with
all her force against the iron hearth, on which a fire was
burning, and was taken up senseless.
'The affright of those present was great. Now that they had
perhaps killed her, they reflected it would have been as
well if they had taken warning from the former occasion, and
approached very carefully a nature so capable of any extreme.
After a while she revived, with a faint groan, amid the sobs
of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, and held her
cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me, to beg
her pardon, and say, it was impossible not to love her. She
made no reply.
'Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be
obtained from her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was
presented to her, or any one drew near from any cause, she
merely turned away her head, and gave no sign. The teacher saw
that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon her--that
she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to do.
'Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of
the passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months
nothing but the sense of injury had rankled in her heart.
She had gone on in one mood, doing what the demon prompted,
without scruple, and without fear.
'But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the
bottom of her soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how
stained, and sad! Strange, strange, that she had not seen
before the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the loveliness
of truth! Now, amid the wreck, uprose the moral nature, which
never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she thought,
"too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and
sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The main-spring of life
is broken."
'The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well
understood her before, but had always looked on her with great
tenderness. And now love seemed,--when all around were in the
greatest distress, fearing to call in medical aid, fearing
to do without it,--to teach her where the only balm was to be
found that could heal the wounded spirit.
'One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana
was sitting as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe
they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the
whited wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse, she
made no reply.
'The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to
observe it.
'The lady then said, "O, my child, do not despair; do not
think that one great fault can mar a whole life! Let me trust
you; let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell
you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one."
'And so she told her tale. It was one of pain, of shame, borne
not for herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana
knew the dignity and reserve of this lady's nature. She had
often admired to see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer
young, mantled with the deepest blush of youth, and the blue
eyes were cast down at any little emotion. She had understood
the proud sensibility of her character. She fixed her eyes on
those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She
heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word,
stretched out her hand for the cup.
'She returned to life, but it was as one who had passed
through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite
broken in her,--the fiery will fallen from flame to coal. When
her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions
summoned, and said to them,--"I deserved to die, but a
generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of
it, nor ever betray the trust, or resent injury more. Can you
forgive the past?"
'And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears,
clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with one
another in offices of humble love to the humbled one; and
let it be recorded, as an instance of the pure honor of which
young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to some
forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond
those walls.
'It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home.
She went thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in
ways those who had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.
'Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal.
Mariana could not _resent_, could not _play false._ The
terrible crisis, which she so early passed through, probably
prevented the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire was
tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding-school, such
as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in a destructive
glow.'
[Footnote A: Summer on the Lakes, p. 81.]