TOWARD THE SHORE.
This word made the idea, that had haunted her so long, painfully
tangible. The young girl began to shudder at the thoughts that crowded
upon her. All the feelings, connected with her love of this young man,
had been strange from the first. So much of pain was mingled with its
sweetness, so much of passion, temper, and the bitter tears which spring
from both, that she could not comprehend them. The very development of
her own nature, under the workings of a passion utterly unknown to her
before, had something mysterious in it, which aroused ideas of some
supernatural power, checking and thwarting it into a wild pain.
Barbara Stafford had undoubtedly connected herself with the evil power,
which sometimes held her heart girded like a vice, and again forced the
young creature to throw herself upon the woman's bosom in a paroxysm of
regretful tenderness.
Why was she to love or hate Barbara Stafford, a woman she had never seen
till within the last few weeks--a stranger wrecked upon the shore, and
cast up, as it were, from the foam of the ocean, without a history, and
it might prove without a true name. If it must be that their destinies
jostled each other, why could it not be all love or entire hate?
Elizabeth Parris sat still, thinking these things over, while Norman
Lovel was talking to her of the friends she had so lately left. He
brought a score of sweet messages from Lady Phipps, and kindly
remembrances from the governor himself. He spoke of the loneliness that
fell upon the family when its guests had departed; but after his words
to Barbara Stafford, any thing he could say to her seemed cold and
common-place. Without knowing it, Elizabeth was possessed of that proud
hunger, which every true woman feels, when she really loves--that
craving desire to be all or nothing, which makes so many noble hearts
miserable.
Yes, Elizabeth would be all to Norman Lovel, or she would be nothing.
She did not say these words, or think these thoughts; but the resolution
rose and burned in her heart like a fire. Filled with the tumult of
these sensations, she did not heed what her lover was saying. His voice
seemed to come from afar off; and as for the meaning of his speech, her
ears refused to drink it in.
Norman saw her distraction, and was amazed by it. Had he ridden fifteen
miles through the woods, almost on an unbroken gallop, to be met with
half looks, and greeted only by monosyllables? The young man took fire
at once. He would give Elizabeth plenty of time to collect her thoughts.
His kindest words should no longer be wasted on a sullen statue.
In this heat of temper, Norman took up his hat and went out. Elizabeth
started, looked wildly over her shoulder, and tried to call him back;
but her voice was husky, and refused utterance; she could neither speak
nor move, till he had crossed the threshold, and was gone. For some
moments she sat motionless. It seemed as if her limbs were girded to the
chair. She thought with bitterness that the power of Barbara Stafford's
evil will held her tight, when it was but the reaction of her own
overwrought feelings. The fiend Jealousy was torturing her.
Elizabeth broke free from this painful thrall, started up, and went to
the door, shading her eyes with one hand as she looked forth toward the
ocean. It lay in the distance, blue and sparkling, like ridges and waves
of sapphire, breaking through streams of diamond dust. The glory of the
sunshine was nothing to her. She turned away, searching the shore; there
she saw young Lovel walking rapidly in the path from which Barbara
Stafford had just disappeared.
"He is going to her! he is going to her!" cried the young girl, pressing
one hand upon her forehead, to still a thought that seemed gnawing at
her brain like a viper. "She has charmed him away, she and the
sweet-toned familiar, that whispers in her voice, and looks through
those velvet eyes--"
"Elizabeth, child! Elizabeth!"
She did not hear the voice of Tituba, who stood in the entry, behind
her, waiting to be noticed.
"Child!" she repeated, touching the uplifted arm with her finger,
"child!"
Elizabeth dropped her hand, and shrunk away, looking at Tituba
suspiciously, over her shoulder.
"You hurt me, old Tituba. Look--my arm is black and purple where the
marks of your nails have been. She has taught you this, old woman. I
have seen her in the kitchen, with fresh herbs, which you made into tea;
and roots, which she dug up with a dagger from among drifts of sea-weed
on the shore. Keep away from me, old woman; my flesh creeps as you come
near."
Old Tituba was confounded. She had only come to consult her young
mistress on the propriety of killing a chicken, and making up a batch of
blackberry pies, if the young gentleman was likely to stay over night;
and this charge of hurting the creature whom she loved better, almost,
than any thing on earth, struck her dumb. At length she spoke.
"You are sick, Miss Lizzybeth; something dreadful is the matter, or
you'd never say this to old Tituba. Go up-stairs, and lie down while I
make some tea."
"No; you gave me herb drink last night, and once before this week. I
will not take that drink from any one."
"Why, child?"
"Hush, Tituba, hush, if you love me! I don't mean to be cross; but my
head is full of awful thoughts; they make me say cruel things even to
poor old Tituba."
"The poor child--and she will take nothing," said the old woman, while
her face, dark and wrinkled like a dried peach, began to work, the
nearest approach to weeping her Indian blood ever permitted. "What can I
do? Where is the young brave?"
"Yonder," said Elizabeth, bitterly, "going toward the sea!"
"Shall I bring him back? Shall I tell him he has left your heart full of
tears?"
Tituba clenched her little withered hands with energy, as if she were
about to give a leap, and start off at full speed, while her sharp eyes
followed the retreating figure of the young man. But Elizabeth held her
back.
"No, no. See, Abigail is coming down. I will tell her. Abigail! cousin
Abigail!"
But Abigail Williams, who had been so caressing and kind half an hour
before, came into the passage with the dull, heavy frown on her forehead
which had become habitual now; answering her cousin's appeal with a
repulsive motion of the hand, she passed by her, and went into the open
air.
The sun was very bright, and for an instant she stood upon the
stepping-stone, shading her eyes with one hand, looking first toward the
forest, and again, with more lingering earnestness, sweeping the horizon
with her gaze, where the sky melted into the ocean. A boat lay like a
speck amid the brightness of the water. If Abigail had not been
searching for it, an object so diminished by distance would have escaped
observation. But she saw the floating speck, and, without a look or word
for those she left behind, started off for the shore.