THE FATES FIND THE DAGGER AND THE BOWL.
For a long time she lay without showing any signs of life. Her passions
rebelled against the restraint which her mind had endeavored to put upon
them. Their concentrated force breaking all bonds, so suddenly, was like
the terrific outburst of the boiling lava from the gorges of the frozen
mountain. Believing her dead, the mother rushed headlong into the
highway, rending the village with her screams. She was for the time
a perfect madwoman. The neighbors gathered to her assistance. That
much-abused woman, the widow Thackeray, was the first to come. Never was
woman's tenderness more remarkable than hers--never was woman's watch by
the bed of sickness and suffering--that watch which woman alone knows
so well how to keep--more rigidly maintained than by her! From the first
hour of that agony under which Margaret Cooper fell to earth insensible,
to the last moment in which her recovery was doubtful, that widow
Thackeray--whose passion for a husband had been described by Mrs. Cooper
as so very decided and evident--maintained her place by the sick bed of
the stricken girl with all the affection of a mother. Widow Thackeray
was a woman who could laugh merrily, but she could shed tears with
equal readiness. These were equally the signs of prompt feeling and nice
susceptibility; and the proud Margaret, and her invidious mother, were
both humbled by that spontaneous kindness for which, hitherto, they had
given the possessor so very little credit, and to which they were now
equally so greatly indebted.
Medical attendance was promptly secured. Charlemont had a very clever
physician of the old school. He combined as was requisite in the
forest region of our country, the distinct offices of the surgeon and
mediciner. He was tolerably skilful in both departments. He found
his patient in a condition of considerable peril. She had broken a
blood-vessel; and the nicest care and closest attendance were necessary
to her preservation. It will not need that we should go through the long
and weary details which followed to her final cure. Enough, that she did
recover. But for weeks her chance was doubtful. She lay for that space
of time, equally in the arms of life and death. For a long period, she
herself was unconscious of her situation.
When she came to know, the skill of her attendants derived very little
aid from her consciousness. Her mind was unfavorable to her cure; and
this, by the way, is a very important particular in the fortunes of the
sick. To despond, to have a weariness of life, to forbear hope as well
as exertion, is, a hundred to one, to determine against the skill of
the physician. Margaret Cooper felt a willingness to die. She felt her
overthrow in the keenest pangs of its shame; and, unhappily, the mother,
in her madness, had declared it.
The story of her fall--of the triumph of the serpent--was now the
village property, and of course put an end to all further doubts on the
score of the piety of Brother Stevens; though, by way of qualification
of his offence, old Hinkley insisted that it was the fault of the poor
damsel.
“She,” he said, “had tempted him--had thrown herself in his way--had
been brazen,” and all that, of which so much is commonly said in all
similar cases. We, who know the character of the parties, and have
traced events from the beginning, very well know how little of this
is true. Poor Margaret was a victim before she was well aware of those
passions which made her so. She was the victim not of lust but of
ambition. Never was woman more unsophisticated--less moved by unworthy
and sinister design. She had her weaknesses--her pride, her vanity; and
her passions, which were tremendous, worked upon through these, very
soon effected her undoing. But, for deliberate purpose of evil--of any
evil of which her own intellect was conscious--the angels were not more
innocent.
But mere innocence of evil design, in any one particular condition,
is not enough for security. We are not only to forbear evil; virtue
requires that we should be exercised for the purposes of good. She
lacked the moral strength which such exercises, constantly pursued,
would have assured her. She was a creature of impulse only, not of
reflection. Besides, she was ignorant of her particular weaknesses. She
was weak where she thought herself strong. This is always the error of
a person having a very decided will. The will is constantly mistaken
for the power. She could not humble herself, and in her own personal
capacities--capacities which had never before been subjected to any
ordeal-trial--she relied for the force which was to sustain her in every
situation. Fancy a confident country-girl--supreme in her own district
over the Hobs and Hinnies thereabouts--in conflict with the adroit man
of the world, and you have the whole history of Margaret Cooper, and
the secret of her misfortune. Let the girl have what natural talent you
please, and the case is by no means altered. She must fall if she
seeks or permits the conflict. She can only escape by flight. It is in
consideration of this human weakness, that we pray God, nightly, not to
suffer us to be exposed to temptation.
When the personal resources of her own experience and mind failed
Margaret Cooper, as at some time or other they must fail all who trust
only in them, she had no further reliance. She had never learned to draw
equal strength and consolation from the sweet counsels of the sacred
volume. Regarding the wild raving and the senseless insanity, which
are but too frequently the language of the vulgar preacher, as gross
ignorance and debasing folly, she committed the unhappy error of
confounding the preacher with his cause. She had never been taught to
make an habitual reference to religion; and her own experience of life,
had never forced upon her those sage reflections which would have shown
her that TRUE religion is the very all of life, and without it life has
nothing. The humility of the psalmist, which was the real source of all
the strength allotted to the monarch minstrel, was an unread lesson with
her; and never having been tutored to refer to God, and relying upon
her own proud mind and daring imagination, what wonder that these frail
reeds should pierce her side while giving way beneath her.
It was this very confidence in her own strength--this fearlessness
of danger (and we repeat the lesson here, emphatically, by way of
warning)--a confidence which the possession of a quick and powerful mind
naturally enough inspires--that effected her undoing. It was not by the
force of her affections that she fell. THE AFFECTIONS ARE NOT APT TO BE
STRONG IN A WOMAN WHOSE MIND LEADS HER OUT FROM HER SEX!
The seducer triumphed through the medium of her vanity. Her feeling of
self-assurance had been thus active from childhood, and conspicuous in
all her sports and employments. SHE HAD NEVER BEEN A CHILD HERSELF. SHE
LED ALWAYS IN THE PASTIMES OF HER PLAYMATES, MANY OF WHOM WERE OLDER
THAN HERSELF.
She had no fears when others trembled; and, if she did not, at any time,
so far transcend the bounds of filial duty as to defy the counsels of
her parents, it was certainly no less true that she never sought for,
and seldom seemed to need them. IT IS DANGEROUS WHEN THE WOMAN, THROUGH
SHEER CONFIDENCE IN HER OWN STRENGTH, VENTURES UPON THE VERGE OF
THE MORAL PRECIPICE. THEY VERY EXPERIMENTAL, WHERE THE PASSIONS ARE
CONCERNED, PROVES HER TO BE LOST.
Margaret Cooper, confident in her own footsteps, soon learned to despise
every sort of guardianship. The vanity of her mother had not only
counselled and stimulated her own, but was of that gross and silly
order, as to make itself offensive to the judgment of the girl herself.
This had the effect of losing her all the authority of a parent; and we
have already seen, in the few instances where this authority took the
shape of counsel, that its tendency was to evil rather than to good.
The arts of Alfred Stevens had, in reality, been very few. It was only
necessary that he should read the character of his victim. This, as an
experienced worldling--experienced in such a volume--he was soon very
able to do. He saw enough to discover, that, while Margaret Cooper was
endowed by nature with an extraordinary measure of intellect, she was
really weak because of its possession. In due proportion to the degree
of exercise to which she subjected her mere mind--making that busy and
restless--was the neglect of her sensibilities--those nice ANTENNAE OF
THE HEART.
“Whose instant touches, slightest pause,”
teach the approach of the smallest forms of danger, however inoffensive
their shapes, however unobtrusive their advance. When the sensibilities
are neglected and suffered to fall into disrepute, they grow idle first,
and finally obtuse! even as the limb which you forbear to exercise loses
its muscle, and withers into worthlessness.
When Alfred Stevens discovered this condition, his plan was simple
enough. He had only to stimulate her mind into bolder exercise--to
conduct it to topics of the utmost hardihood--to inspire that sort of
moral recklessness which some people call courage--which delights to
sport along the edge of the precipice, and to summon audacious spirits
from the great yawning gulfs which lie below. This practice is always
pursued at the expense of those guardian feelings which keep watch over
the virtues of the tender heart.
The analysis of subjects commonly forbidden to the sex, necessarily
tends to make dull those habitual sentinels over the female conduct.
These sentinels are instincts rather than principles. Education can take
them away, but does not often confer them. When, through the arts of
Alfred Stevens, Margaret Cooper was led to discuss, perhaps to despise,
those nice and seemingly purposeless barriers which society--having
the experience of ages for its authority--has wisely set up between the
sexes--she had already taken a large stride toward passing them. But of
this, which a judicious education would have taught her, she was wholly
ignorant. Her mind was too bold to be scrupulous; too adventurous to be
watchful; and if, at any moment, a pause in her progress permitted her
to think of the probable danger to her sex of such adventurous freedom,
she certainly never apprehended it in her own case. Such restraints she
conceived to be essential only for the protection of THE WEAK among
her sex. Her vanity led her to believe that she was strong; and the
approaches of the sapper were conducted with too much caution, with a
progress too stealthy and insensible, to startle the ear or attract the
eye of the unobservant, yet keen-eyed guardian of her citadel. An eagle
perched upon a rock, with wing outspread for flight, and an eye fixed
upon the rolling clouds through which it means to dart, is thus heedless
of the coiled serpent which lies beneath its feet.
The bold eye of Margaret Cooper was thus heedless. Gazing upon the sun,
she saw not the serpent at her feet. It was not because she slept: never
was eye brighter, more far-stretching; never was mind more busy, more
active, than that of the victim at the very moment when she fell. It was
because she watched the remote, not the near--the region in which there
was no enemy, nothing but glory--and neglected that post which is always
in danger. Her error is that of the general who expends his army upon
some distant province, leaving his chief city to the assault and sack of
the invader.
We have dwelt somewhat longer upon the moral causes which, in our story,
have produced such cruel results, than the mere story itself demands;
but no story is perfectly moral unless the author, with a wholesome
commentary, directs the attention of the reader to the true weaknesses
of his hero, to the point where his character fails; to the causes of
this failure, and the modes in which it may be repaired or prevented.
In this way alone may the details of life and society be properly welded
together into consistent doctrine, so that instruction may keep pace
with delight, and the heart and mind be informed without being conscious
of any of those tasks which accompany the lessons of experience.
To return now to our narrative.
Margaret Cooper lived! She might as well have died. This was HER
thought, at least. She prayed for death. Was it in mercy that her prayer
was denied? We shall see! Youth and a vigorous constitution successfully
resisted the attacks of the assailant. They finally obtained the
victory. After a weary spell of bondage and suffering, she recovered.
But she recovered only to the consciousness of a new affliction. All the
consequences of her fatal lapse from virtue have not yet been told. She
bore within her an indelible witness of her shame. She was destined to
be a mother without having been a wife!
This, to her mother at least, was a more terrible discovery than the
former. She literally cowered and crouched beneath it. It was the
WRITTEN shame, rather than the actual, which the old woman dreaded. She
had been so vain, so criminally vain, of her daughter--she had made
her so constantly the subject of her brag--that, unwitting of having
declared the whole melancholy truth, in the first moment of her madness,
she shrank, with an unspeakable horror, from the idea that the little
world in which she lived should become familiar with the whole cruel
history of her overthrow. She could scarcely believe it herself though
the daughter, with an anguish in her eyes that left little to be told,
had herself revealed the truth. Her pride as well as her life, was
linked with the pride and the beauty of her child. She had shared in
her constant triumphs over all around her; and overlooking, as a fond,
foolish mother is apt to do, all her faults of temper or of judgment,
she had learned to behold nothing but her superiority. And now to see
her fallen! a thing of scorn, which was lately a thing of beauty!--the
despised, which was lately the worshipped and the wondered at! No wonder
that her weak, vain heart was crushed and humbled, and her head bowed in
sorrow to the earth. She threw herself upon the floor, and wept bitter
and scalding tears.
The daughter had none. Without sob or sigh, she stooped down and
tenderly assisted the old woman to rise. Why had she no tears? She asked
herself this question, but in vain. Her external emotions promised
none. Indeed, she seemed to be without emotions. A weariness and general
indifference to all things was now the expression of her features.
But this was the deceitful aspect of the mountain, on whose breast
contemplation sits with silence, unconscious of the tossing flame which
within is secretly fusing the stubborn metal and the rock. Anger was in
her breast--feelings of hate mingled up with shame--scorn of herself,
scorn of all--feelings of defiance and terror, striving at mastery; and,
in one corner, a brooding image of despair, kept from the brink of the
precipice only by the entreaties of some fiercer principle of hate. She
felt life to be insupportable. Why did she live? This question came to
her repeatedly. The demon was again at work beside her.
“Die!” said he. “It is but a blow--a moment's pang--the driving a needle
into an artery--the prick of a pin upon the heart. Die! it will save you
from exposure--the shame of bringing into the world an heir of shame!
What would you live for? The doors of love, and fame, even of society,
are shut against you for ever. What is life to you now? a long denial--a
protracted draught of bitterness--the feeling of a death-spasm
carried on through sleepless years; perhaps, under a curse of peculiar
bitterness, carried on even into age! Die! you can not be so base as to
wish for longer life!”
The arguments of the demon were imposing. His suggestions seemed to
promise the relief she sought. Hers seemed the particular case where the
prayer is justified which invokes the mountains and the rocks upon the
head of the guilty. But the rock refused to fall, the mountain to cover
her shame, and its exposure became daily more and more certain. Death
was the only mode of escape from the mountain of pain which seemed to
rest upon her heart. The means of self-destruction were easy. With
a spirit so impetuous as hers, to imagine was to determine. She did
determine. Yet, even while making so terrible a resolve, a singular calm
seemed to overspread her soul. She complained of nothing--wished for
nothing--sought for nothing--trembled at nothing. A dreadful lethargy,
which made the old mother declaim as against a singular proof of
hardihood, possessed her spirit. Little did the still-idolizing mother
conjecture how much that lethargy concealed!
The moment that Margaret Cooper conceived the idea of suicide, it
possessed all her mind. It became the one only thought. There were few
arguments against it, and these she rapidly dismissed or overcame. To
leave her mother in her old age was the first which offered itself; but
this became a small consideration when she reflected that the latter
could not, under any circumstances, require her assistance very long;
and to spare her the shame of public exposure was another consideration.
The evils of the act to herself were reduced with equal readiness to the
transition from one state to another by a small process, which, whether
by the name of stab or shot, was productive only of a momentary spasm;
for, though as fully persuaded of the soul's immortality as the best
of us, the unhappy girl, like all young free-thinkers, had persuaded
herself that, in dying by her own hands, she was simply exercising a
discretionary power under the conviction that her act in doing so was
rendered by circumstances a judicious one. The arguments by which
she deceived herself are sufficiently commonplace, and too easy of
refutation, to render necessary any discussion of them here. Enough to
state the fact. She deliberately resolved upon the fatal deed which
was to end her life and agony together, and save her from that more
notorious exposure which must follow the birth of that child of sin whom
she deemed it no more than a charity to destroy.
There was an old pair of pistols in the house, which had been the
property of her father. She had often, with a boldness not common to the
sex, examined these pistols. They were of brass, well made, of English
manufacture, with common muzzles, and a groove for a sight instead of
the usual drop. They were not large, but, in a practised hand, were
good travelling-pistols, being capable of bringing down a man at twelve
paces, provided there was anything like deliberation in the holder.
Often and again had she handled these weapons, poising them and
addressing them at objects as she had seen her father do. On
one occasion she had been made to discharge them, under his own
instructions; she had done so without terror. She recalled these events.
She had seen the pistols loaded. She did not exactly know what quantity
of powder was necessary for a charge, but she was in no mood to
calculate the value of a thimbleful.
Availing herself of the temporary absence of her mother, she possessed
herself of these weapons. Along with them, in the same drawer, she found
a horn which still contained a certain quantity of powder. There were
bullets in the bag with the pistols which precisely fitted them. There,
too, was the mould--there were flints--the stock was sufficiently ample
for all her desires; and she surveyed the prize, in her own room, with
the look of one who congratulates himself in the conviction that he
holds in his hand the great medicine which is to cure his disease.
In her chamber she loaded the weapons, and, with such resignation as
belonged to her philosophy, she waited for the propitious moment when
she might complete the deed.