STRENGTH AFTER FALL.
That weary night no sleep came to the eyelids of the hapless Margaret
Cooper. The garrulous language of the mother had awakened far other
emotions in her bosom than those which she labored to inspire; and the
warning of Mr. Calvert, for the first time impressed upon herself
the terrible conviction that she was lost. In the wild intoxicating
pleasures of that new strange dream, she had been wofully unconscious
of the truth. So gradual had been the progress of passion, that it
had never alarmed or startled her. Besides, it had come to her under a
disguise afforded by the customary cravings of her soul. Her vanity
had been the medium by which her affections had been won, by which her
confidence had been beguiled, by which the guardian watchers of her
virtue had been laid to sleep.
What a long and dreadful night was that when Margaret Cooper was first
brought to feel the awful truth in its true impressiveness of wo. Alas!
how terribly do the pleasures of sin torture us. The worst human foe is
guilt. The severest censure the consciousness of wrong doing. Poverty
may be endured--nay is--and virtue still be secure; since the mind may
be made strong to endure the heaviest toil, yet cherish few desires;
the loss of kin may call for few regrets, if we feel that we have
religiously performed our duties toward them, and requited all their
proper claims upon us. Sickness and pain may even prove benefits and
blessings, if it shall so happen that we resign ourselves without
complaint, to the scourge of the chastener, and grow patient beneath his
stripes. But that self-rebuke of one's own spirit from which we may
not fly--that remorseful and ever-vexing presence which haunts us,
and pursues with a wing even more fleet than that of fear--which tells
clamorously of what we had, and scornfully of what we have lost--lost
for ever! that is the demon from whom there is no escape, and beyond
whom there is no torture. Vainly would we strive with this relentless
enemy. Every blow aimed at its shadowy bosom recoils upon our own. In
the crowd, it takes the place of other forms and dogs us with suspicious
glances; in the solitude, it stalks boldly to our side, confronts us
with its audacious truths and terrible denunciations--leaves no moment
secure, waking or sleeping! It is the ghost of murdered virtue, brooding
over its grave in that most dark and dismal of all sepulchres, the human
heart. And if we cry aloud, as did Margaret Cooper, with vain prayer
for the recall of a single day, with what a yell of derisive mockery it
answers to our prayer.
The night was passed in the delusive effort of the mind to argue
itself into a state of fancied security. She endeavored to recall those
characteristics in Alfred Stevens, by which her confidence had been
beguiled. This task was not a difficult one in that early day of her
distress; before experience had yet come to confirm the apprehensions of
doubt--before the intoxicating dream of a first passion had yet begun
to stale upon her imagination. Her own elastic mind helped her in this
endeavor. Surely, she thought, where the mind is so noble and expansive,
where the feelings are so tender and devoted, the features so lofty and
impressive, the look so sweet, the language so delicate and refined,
there can be no falsehood.
“The devotion of such a man,” she erringly thought, “might well sanction
the weakness of a woman's heart--might well persuade to the momentary
error which none will seek more readily to repair than himself. If he be
true to me, what indeed should I care for the scorn of others.”
Alas! for the credulous victim. This was the soul of her error. This
scorn of others--of the opinions of the world around her, is the saddest
error of which woman, who is the most dependant of all beings in the
moral world, can ever be guilty. But such philosophy did not now deceive
even the poor girl by whom it was uttered. It is a melancholy truth,
that, where there is no principle, the passions can not be relied on;
and the love of Alfred Stevens had hitherto shown itself in selfishness.
Margaret Cooper felt this, but she did not dare to believe it.
“No! no!” she muttered--“I will not doubt--I will not fear! He is too
noble, too generous, too fond! I could not be deceived.”
Her reliance was upon her previous judgment, not upon his principles.
Her self-esteem assisted to make this reference sufficient for the
purposes of consolation, and this was all that she desired in this first
moment of her doubt and apprehension.
“And if he be true--if he keep for ever the faith that his lips and
looks declare--then will I heed nothing of the shame and the sin. The
love of such a man is sufficient recompense for the loss of all
besides. What to me is the loss of society? what should I care for the
association and opinions of these in Charlemont? And elsewhere--he will
bear me hence where none can know. Ah! I fear not: he will be true.”
Her self-esteem was recovering considerably from its first overthrow.
Her mind was already preparing to do battle with those, the scorn
of whom she anticipated, and whose judgments she had always hitherto
despised. This was an easy task. She was yet to find that it was not the
only task. Her thoughts are those of many, in like situations, and it
is for this reason that we dwell upon them. Our purpose is, to show the
usual processes of self-deception.
Margaret Cooper, like a large class of persons of strong natural mind
and sanguine temper, was only too apt to confound the cause of virtue
with its sometimes uncouth, harsh and self-appointed professors. She
overlooked the fact that public opinion, though a moral object
against which woman dares not often offend, is yet no standard for
her government; that principles are determinable elsewhere; and that,
whatever the world may think of them, and whatever may be their seeming
unimportance under existing circumstances, are the only real moral
securities of earth. She might fly from Charlemont, either into a
greater world, or into a more complete solitude, but she would fly to
no greater certainties than she now possessed. Her securities were
still based upon the principles of Alfred Stevens, and of these she knew
nothing. She knew that he was a man of talent--of eloquence; alas
for her! she had felt it; of skill--she had been its victim; of rare
sweetness of utterance, of grace and beauty; and as she enumerated to
herself these his mental powers and personal charms, she felt, however
numerous the catalogue, that none of these afforded her the guaranty she
sought.
She arose the next day somewhat more composed, and with a face which
betrayed sleeplessness, but nothing worse. This she ascribed to the
headache with which she had retired. She had not slept an instant, and
she arose entirely unrefreshed. But the stimulating thoughts which had
kept her wakeful, furnished her with sufficient strength to appear as
usual in the household, and to go through her accustomed duties. But
it was with an impatience scarcely restrainable that she waited for the
approach of evening which would bring her lover. Him she felt it now
absolutely of the last necessity that she should see; that she should
once more go with him to those secret places, the very thought of which
inspired her with terror, and, laying bare her soul to his eyes, demand
of him the only restitution which he could make.
He came. Once more she descended the steps to meet him--Her mother
arrested her on the stairway. A cunning leer was in her eye, as she
looked into the woful, impassive eyes of her daughter. She grinned with
a sort of delight expressive of the conviction that the advice she had
given the night before was to be put in execution soon.
“Fix him, Margaret; he's mighty eager for you. You've cut your
eye-tooth--be quick, and you'll have a famous parson for a husband yet.”
The girl shrunk from the counsellor as if she had been a serpent. The
very counsel was enough to show her the humiliating attitude in which
she stood to all parties.
“Remember,” said the old woman, detaining her--“don't be too willing at
first. Let him speak fairly out. A young maiden can't be too backward,
until the man offers to make her a young wife!”
The last words went to her soul like an arrow.
“A young maiden!” she almost murmured aloud, as she descended the
steps--“O God! how lovely now, to my eyes, appears the loveliness of a
young maiden!”
She joined Stevens in silence, the mother watching them with the eyes
of a maternal hawk as they went forth together. They pursued a customary
route, and, passing through one of the gorges of the surrounding
hills, they soon lost sight of the village. When the forest-shadows had
gathered thickly around them, and the silence of the woods became felt,
Stevens approached more nearly, and, renewing a former liberty, put his
arm about her waist. She gently but firmly removed it, but neither of
them spoke a word. A dense copse appeared before them. Toward it he
would have led the way. But she resolutely turned aside, and, while a
shudder passed over her frame, exclaimed--
“Not there--not there!”
Breathlessly she spoke. He well enough understood her. They pursued an
opposite direction, and, in the shade of a wood which before they had
never traversed, they at length paused. Stevens, conducting her to the
trunk of a fallen tree, seated her, and placed himself beside her. Still
they were silent. There was a visible constraint upon both. The thoughts
and feelings of both were alike active--but very unlike in character.
With him, passion, reckless passion, was uppermost; selfish in all its
phases, and resolute on its own indulgence at every hazard. In her bosom
was regret if not remorse, mingled with doubts and hopes in pretty equal
proportion. Yet had she, even then, but little doubt of him. She accused
him of no practice. She fancied, foolish girl, that his error, like
her own, had been that of blind impulse, availing itself of a moment
of unguarded reason to take temporary possession of the citadel of
prudence. That he was calculating, cunning--that his snares had been
laid beforehand--she had not the least idea. But she was to grow wiser
in this and other respects in due season. How little did she then
conjecture the coldness and hardness of that base and selfish heart
which had so fanned the consuming flame in hers!
Her reserve and coolness were unusual. She had been the creature,
heretofore, of the most uncalculating impulse. The feeling was spoken,
the thought uttered, as soon as conceived. Now she was silent. He
expected her to speak--nay, he expected reproaches, and was prepared to
meet them. He had his answer for any reproaches which she might make.
But for that stony silence of her lips he was not prepared. The passive
grief which her countenance betrayed--so like despair--repelled and
annoyed him. Yet, wherefore had she come, if not to complain bitterly,
and, after exhaustion, be soothed at last? Such had been his usual
experience in all such cases. But the unsophisticated woman before
him had no language for such a situation as was hers. Her pride, her
ambition--the very intensity of all her moods--rendered the effort at
speech a mockery, and left her dumb.
“You are sad, Margaret--silent and very cold to me,” he said, at last
breaking the silence. His tones were subdued to a whisper, and how full
of entreating tenderness! She slowly raised her eyes from the ground,
and fixed them upon him. What a speech was in that one look! There was
no trace of excitement, scarcely of expression, in her face. There was
no flush upon her cheeks. She was pale as death. She was still silent.
Her eye alone had spoken; and from its searching but stony glance his
own fell in some confusion to the ground. There was a dreary pause,
which he at length broke:--
“You are still silent, Margaret--why do you not speak to me?”
“It is for you to speak, Alfred,” was her reply. It was full of
significance, understood but not FELT by her companion. What, indeed,
had she to say--what could she say--while he said nothing? She was
the victim. With him lay the means of rescue and preservation. She but
waited the decision of one whom, in her momentary madness, she had
made the arbiter of her destiny. Her reply confused him. He would have
preferred to listen to the ordinary language of reproach. Had she burst
forth into tears and lamentations--had she cried, “You have wronged
me--you must do me justice!”--he would have been better pleased than
with the stern, unsuggestive character that she assumed. To all this,
his old experience would have given him an easy answer. But to be driven
to condemn himself--to define his own doings with the name due to his
deserts--to declare his crime, and proffer the sufficient atonement--was
an unlooked-for necessity.
“You are displeased with me, Margaret.”
He dared not meet her glance while uttering this feeble and purposeless
remark. It was so short of all that he should have said--of all that
she expected--that her eyes glistened with a sudden expression of
indignation which was new to them in looking upon him. There was a
glittering sarcasm in her glance, which showed the intensity of her
feelings in the comment which they involuntarily made on the baldness
and poverty of his. Displeasure, indeed! That such an epithet should be
employed to describe the withering pang, the vulturous, gnawing torture
in her bosom--and that fiery fang which thought, like some winged
serpent, was momentarily darting into her brain!
“Displeased!” she exclaimed, in low, bitter tones, which she seemed
rather desirous to suppress--“no, no! sir--not displeased. I am
miserable, most miserable--anything but displeased. I am too wretched to
feel displeasure!”
“And to me you owe this wretchedness, dear Margaret--THAT--THAT is what
you would say. Is it not, Margaret? I have wronged--I have ruined you!
From me comes this misery! You hate, you would denounce me.”
He put his arm about her waist--he sank upon his knee beside her--his
eye, now that he had found words, could once more look courageously into
hers.
“Wronged--ruined!” she murmured, using a part of his words, and
repeating them as if she did not altogether realize their perfect sense.
“Ay, you would accuse me, Margaret,” he continued--“you would reproach
and denounce me--you hate me--I deserve it--I deserve it.”
She answered with some surprise:--
“No, Alfred Stevens, I do not accuse--I do not denounce you. I am
wretched--I am miserable. It is for you to say if I am wronged and
ruined. I am not what I was--I know THAT!--What I am--what I will be!--”
She paused! Her hands were clasped suddenly and violently--she looked to
heaven, and, for the first time, the tears, streamed from her eyes like
rain--a sudden, heavy shower, which was soon over.
“Ah, Margaret, you would have me accuse myself--and I do. The crime is
mine! I have done you this wrong---”
She interrupted him.
“No, Alfred Stevens, _I_ have done wrong! I FEEL that I have done wrong.
That I have been feeble and criminal, _I_ KNOW. I will not be so base as
to deny what I can not but feel. As for your crime, you know best what
it is. I know mine. I know that my passions are evil and presumptuous;
and though I blush to confess their force, it is yet due to the truth
that I should do so, though I sink into the earth with my shame. But
neither your self-reproaches nor my confession will acquit us. Is there
nothing, Alfred Stevens, that can be done? Must I fall before you, here,
amidst the woods which have witnessed my shame, and implore you to save
me? I do! Behold me! I am at your feet--my face is in the dust. Oh!
Alfred Stevens--when I called your eyes to watch, in the day of my
pride, the strong-winged eagle of our hills, did I look as now? Save
me from this shame! save me! For, though I have no reproaches, yet God
knows, when we looked on that eagle's flight together, my soul had no
such taint as fills it now. Whatever were my faults, my follies, my
weaknesses, Heaven knows, I felt not, feared not this! a thought--a
dream of such a passion, then--never came to my bosom. From you it came!
You put it there! You woke up the slumbering emotion--you--but no!--I
will not accuse you! I will only implore you to save me! Can it be done?
can you do it--will you--will you not?”
“Rise, dearest Margaret--let me lift you!” She had thrown herself upon
the earth, and she clung to it.
“No, no! your words may lift me, Alfred Stevens, when your hands can
not. If you speak a hope, a promise of safety, it will need no other
help to make me rise! If you do not!--I would not wish to rise again.
Speak! let me hear, even as I am, what my doom shall be? The pride which
has made me fall shall be reconciled to my abasement.”
“Margaret, this despair is idle. There is no need for it. Do I not tell
you that there is no danger?”
“Why did you speak of ruin?” she demanded.
“I know not--the word escaped me. There is no ruin. I will save you. I
am yours--yours only. Believe me, I will do you right. I regard you as
sacredly my wife as if the rites of the church had so decreed it.”
“I dare not disbelieve you, Alfred! I have no hope else. Your words lift
me! Oh! Alfred Stevens, you did not mean the word, but how true it was;
what a wreck, what a ruin do I feel myself now--what a wreck have I
become!”
“A wreck, a ruin! no, Margaret, no! never were you more beautiful than
at this very moment. These large, sad eyes--these long, dark lashes seem
intended to bear the weight of tears. These cheeks are something paler
than their wont, but not less beautiful, and these lips--”
He would have pressed them with his own--he would have taken her into
his arms, but she repulsed him.
“No, no! Alfred--this must not be. I am yours. Let me prove to you that
I am firm enough to protect your rights from invasion.”
“But why so coy, dearest? Do you doubt me?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Ah! but you do. Why do you shrink from me--why this coldness? If you
are mine, if these charms are mine, why not yield them to me? I fear,
Margaret, that you doubt me still?”
“I do not--dare not doubt you, Alfred Stevens. My life hangs upon this
faith.”
“Why so cold, then?”
“I am not cold. I love you--I will be your wife; and never was wife
more faithful, more devoted, than I will be to you; but, if you knew the
dreadful agony which I have felt, since that sad moment of my weakness,
you would forbear and pity me.”
“Hear me, Margaret; to-morrow is Saturday. John Cross is to be here in
the evening. He shall marry us on Sunday. Are you willing?”
“Oh, yes! thankful, happy! Ah! Alfred, why did I distrust you for an
instant?”
“Why, indeed! But you distrust me no longer--you have no more
misgivings?”
“No, none!”
“You will be no longer cold, no longer coy, dear Margaret--here in the
sweet evening, among these pleasant shades, love, alone, has supremacy.
Here, in the words of one of your favorites:--
“'Where transport and security entwine,
Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,
And here thou art a god--'”
concluding this quotation, he would have taken her in his embrace--he
would have renewed those dangerous endearments which had already proved
so fatal; but she repulsed the offered tenderness, firmly, but with
gentleness.
“Margaret, you still doubt me,” he exclaimed reproachfully.
“No, Alfred, I doubt you not. I believe you. I have only been too ready
and willing to believe you. Ah! have you not had sufficient proof of
this? Leave me the consciousness of virtue--the feeling of strength
still to assert it, now that my eyes are open to my previous weakness.”
“But there is no reason to be so cold. Remember you are mine by every
tie of the heart--another day will make you wholly mine. Surely, there
is no need for this frigid bearing. No, no! you doubt--you do not
believe me, Margaret!”
“If I did not believe you, Alfred Stevens,” she answered gravely, “my
prayer would be for death, and I should find it. These woods which have
witnessed my fault should have witnessed my expiation. The homes which
have known me should know me no more.”
The solemnity of her manner rather impressed him, but having no real
regard for her, he was unwilling to be baffled in his true desires.
“If you doubt me not--if you have faith in me, Margaret, why this
solemnity, this reserve? Prove to me, by your looks, by your actions,
by the dear glances, the sweet murmurs, and the fond embrace, what these
cold assurances do not say.”
His hand rested on her neck. She gently raised and removed it.
“I have already proved to you my weakness. I will now prove my strength.
It is better so, Alfred. If I have won your love, let me now command
your esteem, or maintain what is left me of my own. Do not be angry with
me if I insist upon it. I am resolute now to be worthy of you and of
myself.”
“Ah! you call this love?” said he bitterly. “If you ever loved, indeed,
Margaret--”
“If I ever loved--and have I given you no proofs?” she exclaimed in a
burst of passion; “all the proofs that a woman can give, short of her
blood; and that, Alfred Stevens--that too, I was prepared to give, had
you not promptly assured me of your faith.”
She drew a small dagger from her sleeve, and bared it beneath his
glance.
“Think you I brought this without an object? No! Alfred Stevens--know me
better! I came here prepared to die, as well as a frail and erring
woman could be prepared. You disarmed the dagger. You subdued the
determination when you bid me live for you. In your faith, I am willing
to live. I believe you, and am resolved to make myself worthy of your
belief also. I have promised to be your wife, and here before Heaven, I
swear to be your faithful wife; but, until then, you shall presume in no
respect. Your lip shall not touch mine; your arms shall not embrace me;
you shall see, dear Alfred, that, with my eyes once opened fully upon my
own weakness, I have acquired the most certain strength.”
“Give me the dagger,” he said.
She hesitated.
“You doubt me still?”
“No, no!” she exclaimed, handing him the weapon--“no, no! I do not doubt
you--I dare not. Doubt you, Alfred?--that were death, even without the
dagger!”