THE PALL UPON THE COFFIN.
The noise which arrested the attention of Margaret Cooper, and kindled
her features into an expression of wild and fiery ferocity, was of
innocent origin. The widow Thackeray was the intruder. Her kindness,
sympathy, and unwearied attentions, so utterly in conflict with the
estimates hitherto made of her heart and character, by Mrs Cooper, had,
in some degree, disarmed the censures of that excellent mother, if they
had not wholly changed her sentiments. She professed to be very grateful
to Thackeray's attentions, and, without making any profession, Margaret
certainly showed her that she felt them. She now only pointed the widow
to the corpse of the child, in that one action telling to the other all
that was yet unknown. Then she seated herself composedly, folded her
hands, and, beside the corpse, forgot its presence, forgot the presence
of all--heard no voice, save that of the assiduous demon whom nothing
could expel from her companionship.
“Poor little thing!” murmured the widow Thackeray, as she proceeded to
assist Mrs. Cooper in decking it for the grave.
The duty was finally done. Its burial was appointed for the morrow.
A village funeral is necessarily an event of some importance. The lack
of excitements in small communities, in vests even sorrow and grief and
death with a peculiar interest in the eyes of curiosity. On the present
occasion, all the villagers attended. The funeral itself might have
sufficed to collect them with few exceptions; but now there was a
more eager influence still, working upon the gossippy moods of the
population. To see Margaret Cooper in her affliction--to see that
haughty spirit humbled and made ashamed--was, we fear, a motive, in the
minds of many, much stronger than the ostensible occasion might have
awakened. Had Margaret been a fashionable woman, in a great city, she
might have disappointed the vulgar desire, by keeping to her chamber.
Nay, even according to the free-and-easy standards prevailing at
Charlemont, she might have done the same thing, and incurred no
additional scandal.
It was, indeed, to the surprise of a great many, that she made her
appearance. It was still more a matter of surprise--nay, pious and
virgin horror--that she seemed to betray neither grief nor shame,
surrounded as she was by all whom she knew, and all, in particular,
whom, in the day of her pride, she had kept at a distance.
“What a brazen creature!” whispered Miss Jemima Parkinson, an
interesting spinster of thirty-six, to Miss Ellen Broadhurst, who was
only thirty-four; and Miss Ellen whispered back, in reply:--
“She hasn't the slightest bit of shame!”
Interesting virgins! they had come to gloat over the spectacle of shame.
To behold the agonizing sense of degradation declare itself under the
finger-pointing scorn of those who, perhaps, were only innocent from
necessity, and virtuous because of the lack of the necessary attractions
in the eyes of lust.
But Margaret Cooper seemed quite as insensible to their presence as
to their scorn and her own shame. She, in truth, saw none of them.
She heard not their voices. She conjectured non (sic) nts. She had
anticipated all of them; and having, in consequence, reached a point
of intensity in her agony which could bear no addition, she had been
relieved only by a still more intense passion, by which the enfeebling
one, of mere society, stood rebuked and almost forgotten.
They little dreamed the terrible thoughts which were working, beneath
that stolid face, in that always eager-working brain. They never fancied
what a terrible demon now occupied that fiery heart which they supposed
was wholly surrendered to the consciousness of shame. Could they
have heard that voice of the fiend whispering in her ears, while they
whispered to one another--heard his terrible exhortations--heard her no
less terrible replies--they would have shrunk away in horror, and felt
fear rather than exultation.
Margaret Cooper was insensible to all that they could say or do. She
knew them well--knew what they would say, and feel, and do; but the very
extremity of her suffering had placed it out of their power any longer
to mortify or shame.
Some few of the villagers remained away. Ned Hinkley and his widowed
sister were absent from the house, though they occupied obscure places
in the church when the funeral-procession took place. An honorable
pity kept them from meeting the eyes of the poor shame-stricken but not
shame-showing woman.
And Margaret followed the little corpse to its quiet nook in the village
graveyard. In that simple region the procession was wholly on foot; and
she walked behind the coffin as firmly as if she knew not what it held.
There was a single shiver that passed over her frame, as the heavy clods
fell upon the coffin-lid--but that was all; and when her mother and the
widow Thackeray took each of them one of her arms, and led her away from
the grave, and home, she went quietly, calmly, it would seem, and with
as firm a step as ever!
“She has not a bit of feeling!” said Miss Jemima to Miss Ellen.
“That's always the case with your very smart women,” was the reply.
“It's all head with 'em; there's no heart. They can talk fine things
about death, and sorrow, and affliction, but it's talk only. They don't
feel what they say.”
Ned Hinkley had a juster notion of the state of the poor victim--of her
failings and her sensibilities, her equal strength and weakness.
“Now,” said he to his sister, “there's a burning volcano in that woman's
heart, that will tear her some day to pieces. For all that coldness, and
calmness, and stateliness, her brain is on fire, and her heart ready for
a convulsion. Her thoughts now, if she thinks at all, are all desperate.
She's going through a very hell upon earth! When you think of her
pride--and she's just as proud now as the devil himself--her misfortune
hasn't let her down--only made her more fierce--you wonder that she lets
herself be seen; you wonder that she lives at all. I only wonder that
she hasn't thrown herself from the rocks and into the lake. She'll do it
yet, I'm a-thinking.
“And just so she always was. I knew her long ago. She once told me she
was afraid of nothing--would do as she pleased--she could dare anything!
From that moment I saw she wasn't the girl for Bill Hinkley. I told
him so, but he was so crazy after her, he'd hear to nothing. A woman--a
young woman--a mere girl of fifteen--boasting that she can dare and do
things that would set any woman in a shiver! I tell you what, sis, the
woman that's bolder than her sex is always in danger of falling from
the rocks. She gets such a conceit of her mind, that the devil is always
welcome. Her heart, after that, stands no sort of chance!
“Protect me, say I, from all that class of women that pride themselves
on their strongmindedness! They get insolent upon it. They think that
mind can do everything. They're so vain, that they never can see the
danger, even when it's yawning at their feet. A woman's never safe
unless she's scary of herself, and mistrusts herself, and never lets her
thoughts and fancies get from under a tight rein of prudence. For, after
all, the passions will have their way some day, and then what's the
use of the mind? I tell you, sis, that the passions are born deaf--they
never listen to any argument.
“But I'm sorry for her--God knows I'm sorry for her! I'd give all
I'm worth to have a fair shot or clip at that rascal Stevens. Brother
Stevens! Ain't it monstrous, now, that a sheep's cover should be all
that's sufficient to give the wolf freedom in the flock?--that you've
only to say, 'This is a brother--a man of God'--and no proof is asked!
nobody questions! The blind, beastly, bigoted, blathering blockheads!
I feel very much like setting off straight, and licking John Hinkley,
though he's my own uncle, within an inch of his life! He and John
Cross--the old fools who are so eager to impose their notions of
religion upon everybody, that anybody may impose upon them--they two
have destroyed this poor young creature. It's at their door, in part,
this crime, and this ruin! I feel it in my heart to lick 'em both out of
their breeches!
“Yet, as I'm a living sinner, they'll stand up in the congregation, and
exhort about this poor girl's misfortune, just as if they were not to
blame at all who brought the wolf into the farmyard! They'll talk about
her sins, and not a word, to themselves or anybody else, about their own
stupidities! I feel it in my heart to lather both of them right away!”
The sister said little, and sorrowfully walked on in silence homeward,
listening to the fierce denunciations of Ned Hinkley. Ned was affected,
or, rather, he showed his sympathies, in a manner entirely his own. He
was so much for fight, that he totally forgot his fiddle that night, and
amused himself by putting his two “barking-pups” in order--getting
them ready, as he said, “in case he ever should get a crack at Brother
Stevens!”
The cares of the child's burial over, and the crowd dispersed, the
cottage of the widow Cooper was once more abandoned to the cheerlessness
and wo (sic) within. Very dismal was the night of that day to the two,
the foolish mother and wretched daughter, as they sat brooding together,
in deep silence, by the light of a feeble candle. The mother rocked a
while in her easy-chair. The daughter, hands clasped in her lap, sat
watching the candlelight in almost idiotic vacancy of gaze. At length
she stood up and spoke--slowly, deliberately, and apparently in as calm
a mood as she had ever felt in all her life:--
“We must leave this place, mother. We must go hence--to-morrow if we
can.”
“Go?--leave this place? I want to know why! I'm sure we're very
comfortable here. I can't be going just when you please, and leaving all
my company and friends.”
“Friends!”
“Yes, friends! There's the widow Thackeray--and there's--”
“And how long is it since Mrs. Thackeray was such a dear friend,
mother?” asked the daughter, with ill-suppressed scorn.
“No matter how long: she's a good friend now. She's not so foolish
as she used to be. She's grown good; she's got religion; and I don't
consider what she was. No!--I'm willing--”
“Pshaw, mother! tell me nothing of your friendships. You'll find,
wherever you go, as many friends as you please, valued quite as much as
Mrs. Thackeray.”
“Well, I do say, Margaret, it's very ungrateful of you to speak
so disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray, after all her kindness and
attention.”
“I do not speak disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray. I NEVER did speak ill
of her, even when it was your favorite practice to do so. I only speak
of your newly-acquired appreciation of her. But this is nothing to
the purpose. I repeat, mother, we can not remain here. I will depart,
whether you resolve to go or not. I can not, I will not, exist another
week in Charlemont.”
“And where would you go?”
“Back--back to that old farm, from which you brought me in evil hour!
It is poor, obscure, profitless, unsought, unseen: it will give me a
shelter--it may bring me peace. I must have solitude for a season; I
must sleep for months.”
“Sleep for months! La me, child, what a notion's that!”
“No matter--thither let us go. I seem to see it, stretching out its
hands, and imploring us to come.”
“Bless me, Margaret! a farm stretching out its hands! Why, you're in a
dream!”
“Don't wake me, then! Better I should so dream! Thither I go. It is
fortunate that you have not been able to sell it. It is a mercy that it
still remains to us. It was my childhood's home. Would it could again
receive me as a child! It will cover my head for a while, at least, and
that is something. We must leave this place. Here every thing offends
me--every spot, every face, every look, every gesture.”
“It's impossible, Margaret!--”
“What! you suppose it an honorable distinction, do you, when the folks
here point to your daughter, and say--ha! ha!--listen what they say! It
is the language of compliment! They are doing me honor, with tongue and
finger! Repeat, mother; tell me what they say--for it evidently gives
you great pleasure.”
“O Margaret! Margaret!--”
“You understand, do you? Well, then, we go. We can not depart too soon.
If I stay here, I madden! And I must not madden. I have something which
needs be done--which must be done. It is an oath! an oath in heaven! The
child was a witness. She heard all--every syllable!”
“What all? what did you hear?”
“No matter! I'm sworn to be secret. But you shall hear in time. We have
no time for it now. It is a very long story. And we must now be packing.
Yes, we must go. _I_ must go, at least. Shall I go alone?”
“But you will not leave your mother, Margaret!”
“Father and mother--all will I leave, in obedience to that oath. Believe
me or not, mother--go with me or not--still I go. Perhaps it is better
that I should go alone.”
The strong will naturally swayed the feebler, as it had ever done
before. The mother submitted to an arrangement which she had not the
resolution to oppose. A few days were devoted to necessary arrangements,
and then they left Charlemont for ever. Margaret Cooper looked not once
behind them as they traversed the lonely hills looking down upon the
village--those very hills from which, at the opening of this story, the
treacherous Alfred Stevens and his simple uncle beheld the lovely little
settlement. She recognised the very spot, as they drove over it,
where Stevens first encountered her, and the busy demon, at her ears
whispered:--
“It was here! You remember!”
And she clinched her teeth firmly together, even though she shuddered
at her memories; and she renewed her oath to the demon, who, thereupon,
kept her company the rest of the journey, till she reached the ancient
and obscure farmstead in which she was born.
“She retired,” says the rude chronicle from which we have borrowed many
of the materials for this sombre history, “to a romantic little farm
in---, there to spend in seclusion, with her aged mother and a few
servants, the remainder of her days.”
Our simple chronicler takes too much for granted. Margaret Cooper
retired with no such purpose. She had purposes entirely at conflict with
any idea of repose or quiet. She thought nothing of the remainder of
her days. Her mother was not so aged but that she could still think, six
months afterward, of the reported marriage of the widow Thackeray with
repining, and with the feeling of one who thinks that she has suffered
neglect and injustice at the hands of the world. Touching the romance
of the ancient farmstead, we are more modestly content to describe it
as sterile, lonely, and unattractive; its obscurity offering, for the
present, its chief attractions to our desolate heroine, and the true
occasion for that deep disgust with which her amiable mother beheld it.
Our chronicle of Charlemont is ended. We have no further object or
interest within its precincts. William Hinkley is gone, no one knows
whither, followed by his adopted father, the retired lawyer, whose
sensibilities were fatal to his success. It was not long before Ned
Hinkley and his widowed sister found it their policy to depart
also, seeking superior objects in another county; and at this moment
Charlemont is an abandoned and deserted region. It seemed to decline
from the moment when the cruel catastrophe occurred which precipitated
Margaret Cooper from her pride of place. Beautiful as the village
appeared at the opening of our legend, it was doomed to as rapid a decay
as growth. “Something ails it now--the spot is cursed!”
But OUR history does not finally conclude with the fate of Charlemont.
That chronicle is required now to give place to another, in which we
propose to take up the sundered clues, and reunite them in a fresh
progress. We shall meet some of the old parties once more, in new
situations. We shall again meet with Margaret Cooper, in a new guise,
under other aspects, but still accompanied by her demon--still inspired
by her secret oath--still glowing with all the terrible memories of the
past--still laboring with unhallowed pride; and still destined for a
lark catastrophe. Our scene, however, lies in another region, to which
the reader, who has thus far kept pace with our progress, is entreated
still to accompany us. The chronicle of “CHARLEMONT” will find its
fitting sequel in that of “BEAUCHAMPE”--known proverbially as “THE
KENTUCKY TRAGEDY.”
END OF CHARLEMONT.