JEALOUSY.
“Foul jealousy! thou turnest love divine
To joyless dread, and mak’st the loving heart
With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine,
And feed itself with self consuming smart:
Of all the passions of the soul thou vilest art.
SPENSER’S FAIRY QUEEN.
From a strong reluctance to take you into the deep caves of the soul,
where evil is forged, I have paused with my pen for hours. One can
scarcely descend into the deep hell of passion and guilt without
becoming saturated with the brimstone, scorched in the flames. As we
enter the mystery of iniquity let us invoke the angels to guard us.
* * * * *
There is no meaner passion than jealousy. Exclusive, concentrated,
intense love does not always and necessarily include jealousy, and
very ill does that base emotion accord with the high spirit, dashing
pride—the pride of strength that distinguished Hagar. Yet, reader,
have you never seen a fine man or woman with one physical deformity,
infirmity? and have you never been told that such a blemish on God’s
perfect work was the effect of injury sustained in infancy. I have
seen a man—a Hercules in strength, an Apollo in beauty and
grace—_crippled_—from an injury sustained in infancy through the
thoughtlessness of parents. I have seen a woman beautiful as Venus,
graceful as Euphrosyne—_blind_—from an injury sustained in infancy
through the carelessness of nurses. How ill the shrunk and halting
limb accorded with the handsome and manly figure! how ill the
extinguished eye harmonized with the beautiful face! These misfortunes
were not the faults of the sufferers, yet the effects of these wounds
were felt through life, their scars were carried to the grave.
And, reader, there are mental and moral deformities, infirmities—_the
effects of injuries sustained in infancy!_ more baleful than any
physical calamity can be, for they are the cause not only of much sorrow
and suffering—as physical ills _may_ be—but of much _sin_, as moral and
mental wounds and scars _must_ be, whose fatal influence pursues through
life unto death and beyond the grave. Thus a spark of jealousy is
dropped into an infant’s heart, it smoulders through long years, and
finally bursts out into a destructive flame in the woman’s bosom.
A little, dark, wild, shy child, whose peculiar organization demanded
that her shyness should be conquered by kindness, her wildness tamed by
gentleness, her self-distrust reassured by confidence, is disparaged and
neglected, while her more beautiful companion and playmate, whose
extreme tenderness and sensibility required the bracing process of a
sterner training, is flattered and caressed; until wounded by the loss
of love, the slighted child grows doubtful of herself, distrustful of
others, and jealous of her more attractive rival, hard, proud and
defiant to all she did _not_ love, suspicious and exacting towards the
only one she adored; and the favored child, enervated by indulgence,
grows more and more dependent on the love of those about her, more and
more incapable of resisting any temptation that appeals to her through
her affections; and these evils have grown with the growth, and
strengthened with the strength of the children, of the girls, of the
women. Alas! who can see the end of the interminable evil resulting from
one small mistake in education; and from what wanton carelessness, even
in well meaning parents and teachers, these mistakes are made; and
sometimes how intentionally and in what good faith they are committed!
Heaven knows there would seem to be enough to do to eradicate
_hereditary_ evil, the roots of sin indigenous in the hearts of
children, without laboring to sow there the seeds of errors foreign to
the soil. The low vice of jealousy was foreign to the high temperament
of our Hagar; yet how it had been planted, sunk, trodden deep, and
stamped into the bottom of her heart. The mean sins of indolence,
selfishness, and vanity were not native to the pure soil of our
Rosalia’s bosom, yet how sedulously they had been cultivated there!
Rosalia, the petted favorite, whose soft nature, while it pleaded for
indulgence, really needed the hardening process of a strict
training—Rosalia, still further enfeebled by fondness, has grown softer
and weaker year by year; softer and weaker, until from very tenderness
she is rendered incapable of resisting the solicitations of any evil
that may tempt her through her sympathies. Rosalia has grown up gentle,
tender, lovely, but vain, infirm, and unprincipled. Hagar, whose wild
and shy temper needed to be wooed and won, and ameliorated by
tenderness—Hagar still further repulsed, hardened, and alienated by
neglect, harshness, and caprice—Hagar is still high spirited and
faithful, but inclined to entertain envy, suspicion, and jealousy; foul
blots on a fine character.
Her jealousy of Rosalia was especially natural, and logical—I had nearly
said inevitable—not only from the fascinating beauty of her rival from
infancy up to womanhood, but from the very character of her ONE
affection.
Rosalia, then, the beauty, the pet, and the rival, is domesticated with
Hagar, the jealous and the slighted girl—and with Raymond, the poetic
and the artistic epicurean—Rosalia equally fascinating in her extreme
beauty, in her artless grace, and in the affectionate tenderness of her
manner and her tone, soon won the warm friendship of Raymond Withers as
she had won the affection of every man, woman, child, and beast, that
fell in her way. She would have been a delightful addition to the circle
at the Rialto, a delightful fireside companion in the autumn evenings,
could Hagar have rid herself of the vulture of jealousy gnawing in the
bottom of her heart. Yet do not mistake Hagar, do not think more meanly
of her than she deserves—she was not _generally_, but only
_particularly_ envious of Rosalia; thus, had they both been in general
society together, Hagar could have sympathized with, could have rejoiced
in the highest success of her lifelong rival, could have been contented
to be obscured by, to be lost under the glory of Rosalia’s charms and
conquests; but here in her own domestic circle, here where she had
“garnered up her heart,” she could brook no intrusion, no partnership,
no rival; and as in this boundless universe, there _was_ but ONE, there
ever _had been_ but ONE whom her whole soul worshipped—GOD—so on this
wide earth there was but _one_, there had been but _one_ whom her whole
heart adored—her _husband_. This was Hagar’s religion and her love. In
almost every respect she was as opposite to Rosalia in mind and heart as
she was in person and appearance. Rosalia, with a generous benevolence,
radiating from her heart as the beams from the sun, knew no exclusive
affection, was “innocent of the knowledge” of any particular love.
Hagar’s soul, nearly destitute of general benevolence, was absorbed in
one intense passion. Had a city been swallowed by an earthquake,
overflowed by the boiling lava thrown from the crater of a burning
volcano, carried away by an inundation of the sea, or reduced to ashes
by a general conflagration; had a nation been exterminated by war,
pestilence, or famine, the news would have impressed Hagar very
slightly. _But!_ had the lightest sabre cut but marked the fair and
regal brow of her loved one, her very heart would have dropped blood.
Yet much as she desired his _happiness_, much she desired his
_affections_ more! she could have borne his _death_ better than the
_loss of his love_! she wished to be all in all to the man who was
everything to her. Her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant.
For her, his broad and high white forehead, in its superb amplitude and
repose, expressed more majesty than the wild expanse of heaven
itself—for her, his soft and deep blue eyes revealed more spiritual life
than the purest dreams of her own soul—for her every expression of the
face, every gesture of the figure, every tone of the voice revealed more
poetry, religion, love, than the whole universe besides. Often when he
would be writing or reading, or in any other manner occupied so as to
prevent conversation, she would sit upon the corner of the sofa, and
veiling the splendid fire of her eyes under their long lashes, gaze upon
his form or face, watching its varying expression with all the
enthusiasm of an artist, with all the inspiration of a poet, with all
the adoration of a devotee, with all the love of a woman, a silent and
unnoticed but enraptured worshipper! At such times, carried away, she
would not think of herself at all—at other times a painful feeling or
fancy of self-deficiency would torture her. All who love, who worship,
think more or less humbly of themselves—this feeling is often morbid in
excess or irrationality, and often itself engenders jealousy. In Hagar
this was natural—she was not in her own estimation a tithe so handsome
or _accomplished_ as Raymond, and in the same proportion that she adored
his perfections she depreciated her own attractions. For him she desired
to possess all the gifts of beauty and genius, that she might meet and
supply the wants of his being at every avenue, that she might be the
whole world to him, as he undoubtedly was the whole universe to her. To
her every face looked mean, expressionless, or sensual, compared to his
glorious countenance, in which every passion, malign or benign, became
godlike! to her every tone was harsh and rough, or flat and dull,
compared to his love-tuned voice—he was her music, her poetry, her love,
her religion, her life, soul, and final destiny—her spirit sought unison
with his spirit, ardently, impetuously; she knew in heaven, their
redeemed souls would blend in one—in heaven they would be—_one angel_.
Call this morbid, call this extravagant, reader, yet acknowledge that it
was no _sudden_ passion, that this intense love of one ardent soul had
been growing from the moment that the beautiful youth had lifted the
little ugly infant to his knee, and thenceforth become her adoration,
her idol, her dream of heaven. This passion had increased with years,
every circumstance had only served to augment it, association and
absence, meeting and parting, until their marriage, and then all the
requirements of his regal will, all the sacrifices of her own wishes,
all the struggles of her independence before it was subdued, all the
death throes of her mighty pride before it was annihilated, served but
to draw tighter, to rivet faster the chains that bound her heart to
_his_; her separate soul, will, individuality of which she had boasted
in her haughtiness, fled to him, cleaved to him, seemed blissfully,
divinely lost in him—in heaven they would be one angel, that was her
love, hope, faith, religion, her conception of heaven. Call it insanity,
reader! many minds that pass for sane have in a greater or a less degree
their insanity, in other words their master passion, or their besetting
sin, or both in one.
Her conjugal love was her master passion—jealousy her besetting sin—and
her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant. In losing her very
soul in his heart, she wished to FILL that heart to the exclusion of
every other object. I repeat it here, she wished to be everything to the
being who was everything to her—she wished for matchless beauty,
peerless genius, not that she might be generally admired, but that she
might meet and supply every demand of his soul. But now! but now! here
was one more richly and rarely endowed by nature with the power of
pleasing than herself, one who charmed all the world, and who must, she
fancied, charm _her_ world, her universe away from her life. She wished
to be—oh! _not_ from vanity, but from love to please _his_ poet-mind—she
wished to be the fairest in her husband’s sight—but here was one fairer,
oh, how much fairer than herself—she wished to be the most graceful, yet
here was one whose every movement was the very “poetry of motion”—she
wished that _her_ voice in household cadences, or in song, might fall
the sweetest on his ears; yet here was one, whose artless tones were
melodious as the fall of waters or the notes of birds.
Their evenings!
Rosalia would sit at the piano singing the low, sweet melodies he loved,
while he stood at the back of her chair, turning over the music, bending
above her, smiling benignly on her, forgetful of everything but of her
and her song, sometimes joining his voice to hers—and she! how often at
the end of a song she would turn around and give him a soft, beaming
smile of affectionate pleasure, when she felt that she had pleased him.
How little the innocent girl dreamed of the mischief she was doing—how
indeed should she have suspected it? Had she not played and sung for
Captain Wilde every evening on the Rainbow, and had she not always been
rewarded by smiles, praises, caresses, and kisses, from Sophie and from
Captain Wilde, too? No, she did not guess the evil she was causing—she
did not guess it even when she saw, evening after evening, that Hagar
withdrew herself from the instrument and buried herself in a distant
deep arm-chair, or left the room. There _was one_ who observed and
defied her displeasure—Raymond, who occasionally raising himself from
his recumbent posture over Rosalia’s chair, would turn, and darting his
eyes fiercely into the obscurity of Hagar’s retreat, and fixing them
sternly upon her, would bring her by a look back to his side, sighing,
trembling, dejected—then smiling sweetly on her, and passing his arm
around her little waist, would hold her there, and look supremely
blessed while thus caressing _her_ and listening to Rosalia’s music.
Alas! that Hagar was not wise! Alas! for the mental cripple, for the
moral blind, for the injury received in infancy, for the faith crushed
out! Hagar was not wise, did not understand—she continued, whenever she
was permitted, sullenly to withdraw herself from the group, making the
trio a couple, and oh! fatal sign, at last she was more and more
frequently _allowed_ to absent herself. Hagar was insane—yes, reader, in
recalling the circumstances of this period of her life, in trying to
understand them, I am constrained to say that Hagar was insane, not to
have seen that _her_ presence, _her_ sympathy, together with Rosalia’s
perfect innocence and artlessness, would have been the immediate
antidote to any poison that _might_ have crept into the intercourse of
these two friends—the antidote! it would have prevented the most distant
approach of an evil thought.
Jealousy seldom or never prevents, frequently suggests and causes, the
very infidelity it fears. No evil passion is stationary, it must
increase or decrease. Hagar’s disease was growing. At first she had only
been jealous of his admiration, of his affection—_now_ she was growing
doubtful of his faith. Now, because wearied out by her sullenness,
indignant at her unjust suspicions, even while obstinate in the pursuit
of the pleasures and gratification of the tastes that excited her envy,
he permitted her to withdraw from his side and isolate herself in a
distant corner. As yet Rosalia’s bosom was at perfect peace—the slight
shadow of the evil thought, the thought now ever gnawing at Hagar’s
heart, ever by her insane jealousy _kept before Raymond’s mind_, had not
darkened its brightness, had not breathed on its purity. Will the evil
retrograde, or will it advance until it shall overwhelm the gentle girl?
Hagar, deeply as she cherished this envy, this jealousy, was yet too
proud to breathe it to her rival; besides, it was Raymond upon whom her
doubts fastened, not as yet upon Rosalia. The perfect simplicity, the
maidenly frankness, the childlike affection of Rosalia, was too apparent
and _transparent_ to expose _her_ to doubt or suspicion.
Reader, how I loathe this part of my work! this analisation of an evil
passion is as detestable a task as I should judge the dissection and
anatomy of a putrid heart to be. If you dislike to read it as I to write
it, you will skip it all.
Sometimes Hagar would arouse herself, and throwing off at least all
manifestation of gloom or sullenness, would make an effort to regain her
fast ebbing power of pleasing; she also cultivated her rare talent for
music; but she could seldom succeed in giving Raymond pleasure. He loved
melody, and her forte was grand harmony. The grand anthems of Haydn,
Handel, and Beethoven, lost none of their grandeur in her apprehension
and expression. But her soul was strung upon too high a key, to give out
sweetly the low breathing music of the melodies he loved. Thus he
luxuriated in the bright, soft shower of Rosalia, full of melody, and
writhed when the sublime storm of Hagar’s grand harmony flashed and
thundered around him. Hagar saw this with anguish, oh! and this very
anguish gave inspiration, gave additional force and expression to her
passionate, to her gorgeous, to her awful conceptions of music! At last,
however, she gave up the hope of ever inspiring him with admiration of
her fierce tempests of harmony, and tried her voice and her touch upon
the airs he loved, but here she failed—failed entirely. This was not her
proper forte, and she had, as yet, too little control over her voice to
manage it mechanically—to reduce it to the minor keys—she depended for
much of her grand performance upon inspiration, and she had no
inspiration for those low breathing melodies. Even suffering did not
give it her; for in her hours of anguish her soul found its only
expression in the sharp cry, the deep roar, the thunder of the grand
harmony,—not in the sob and wail of melody. So Hagar abandoned the
seemingly vain attempt to make her music agreeable in the drawing. She
cultivated the art—_her_ art now by vocation and adoption—with all the
passionate enthusiasm of her ardent nature; it became her solace, her
soul’s expression. Her days were divided between her music and her
children. At length, not being able to find sufficient expression, her
soul began to struggle for freer, fuller utterance—for the revelation of
its _own_ individual life and love, poetry and music—and Hagar became a
poet and a musician by these steps; first she set the finest passages of
her best loved poets to the sublimest strains of her most admired
composers wherever they could be adapted; where they could not, she
essayed to set the poetry to music of her own composition, as in the
instance of Smart’s song; and then to compose words to her favorite
strains of harmony. At last she attained the power of revealing her
_own_ poetry—breathing her _own_ music. She was but nineteen. Her music
and her poetry were all impromptus of sudden, irresistible
inspiration—the expression of her life at the moment—the electric flash
of soul, bright and gone in an instant—they were unwritten, inspired,
expressed, and forgotten. They would come, these spasms of inspiration,
as the blast comes, and go as it subsides; come as the tide comes, and
go as it ebbs; come, waking the stillness of her soul as the thunder
comes, and go as it rolls into silence; come, lighting up the blindness
of her mind as the lightning comes, and go as it flashes out into
darkness; come as the storm comes, and pass as it passes. They would
come at first unexpected, unbidden, impetuous, and irresistible,—nor
could she send them away till a more convenient season, nor could she at
will summon them. At length she found the spell to call these
“Spirits from the vasty deep.”
She found her power, though now she played with it only for her
pleasure. The pent-up fire of her soul—that burned in her bosom, rocking
to and fro, lashing its shores as a sea of flame in storm—the soul that
blazed in and out upon her cheek, and flamed through her eyes until
their gaze seemed to scorch you; the soul found vent in poetry and in
music.
And she would have been happy, _but_
in the grand diapason of her life was one broken chord, that left a
blank, or gave out discord—her jealousy.
One evening, as usual, Rosalia was seated at the piano, playing and
singing one of Moore’s melodies. Raymond was seated near her, and his
very soul seemed floating out upon the waves of the music; presently he
arose and went to the back of her chair where he stood bending over her,
unconsciously half embracing her. She raised her eyes and welcomed him
by a beaming smile, without pausing in her music. Soon, however, he
turned and looked for Hagar; she was sitting in a distant part of the
room, buried in the shades of a deep arm-chair—her head bent forward and
resting on her hand, while her profile was concealed by the veil of her
ringlets. She did not look up or notice his glance. He spoke to her; she
raised her eyes—he beckoned her to come, but with a bitter smile, she
shook her head in refusal; then his eyes fastened on her with a fierce
anger, piercing through their tenderness, which now for the first time
she did not heed; then with a quick and threatening nod, he turned away
and gave his attention up to the music. Not one whit of this dumb show
had Rosalia noticed. At last her song was over, and rising she left the
piano.
An hour after, Raymond Withers entered the dressing-room of his wife.
She had thrown herself upon the lounge, and her head was drooped over
one end, while all her ringlets falling down shaded her face. He
approached—and standing over her with folded arms, he said—
“Hagar!”
She did not speak or move.
“_Hagar!_”
She looked up, silently.
“_Hagar!_ I say.”
“Well?”
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“_Nothing!_—do not speak falsely, Hagar! tell me at once, what is the
matter?”
She smiled a haggard smile, and rising, went to her dressing-glass and
began to unclasp her bracelets. He followed, and taking her hand, led
her back to the sofa, seated her, and stood before her, folded his arms,
and looking steadily at her, said, sternly,
“This folly must be ended just at this point; and when I ask you a
question, Hagar, you are to reply, and not evade it. Tell me, now, the
cause of your gloom—tell me at once, without prevarication, for I will
know it.”
“You _do_ know it,” said she, looking up through her anguished eyes at
his calm, stern, yet beautiful face. “You do know it.”
“I do _not_ know it, and I wait your answer.”
“You _suspect_ it, then?”
“I am not given to _suspicion_,” sneered Raymond, “and I want to hear
the cause of your sullenness from your own lips. Come, reply!”
She relapsed into silence.
“Am I to have an answer from you, Hagar?”
“Alas! why do you press the question? I am gloomy, I cannot conceal it,
but I do not complain—do not _wish_ to complain.”
“Of _what_ have you to ‘complain?’”
“Nothing.”
“‘_Nothing!_’—false, again! for though it is true, in fact, that you
_have_ nothing of which to complain, it is false on your lips.”
She did not repel this charge, but sat with head bowed, with chin rested
on her breast, with clasped hands on her lap, he still standing before
her with folded arms.
“Why did you not come up to the piano when I beckoned you?”
“Because I did not wish to come.”
“_You ‘did not wish to come’_—insolent! but passing over the
impertinence of your reply, Hagar, _why_ did you ‘not wish to come?’”
“I was not wanted.”
“I called you.”
“Yet I was not needed.”
“That was no business of yours; I beckoned you!”
“And I am not a slave, to come at your beck!” flashed Hagar, suddenly
raising her eyes, blazing with defiance, to meet his steady gaze.
“No, you are not a slave, Hagar; you are a proud, fierce woman—yet
Hagar, to-morrow, when I call you to my side, _you will come_!” and his
hand dropped heavily upon her shoulder.
We will drop the curtain here; these scenes are disgraceful, disgusting.
* * * * *
The next evening they were grouped around the piano again, Rosalia was
singing her evening song, Raymond Withers standing at the back of her
chair, a little on the right, and Hagar stood on the other side, leaning
with her elbow on the end of the piano, her forehead bowed upon the palm
of her hand. Rosalia, without raising her eyes from her music, moved the
light so that its beams fell more directly upon her notes—its beams fell
also upon the countenance of Hagar, exposing a face so ghastly in its
pallor, eyes so fierce in their anguish, that Raymond, evidently fearing
lest Rosalia should notice her agony of expression, brought her, by a
look and gesture, out of the light and into the shade of the background
by his side; and passing his arm around her waist, drew her up to him,
smiling down in her face, as he whispered, quickly, under his breath—
“Be gentle, tender, complying, Hagar, and you shall be happy; be the
reverse, be rude, angry, rebellious, and you shall be wretched. Yet I
love you, Hagar, and would prefer to make you happy; do not, while I
love you, constrain me to deeds of hate.”
She did not reply; she stood still and pale within the embrace of his
arm, and remained there all the remainder of the evening, until Rosalia
had finished her songs.
As the girl shut down the lid of the instrument, arose and turned
towards them, she noticed Hagar, and starting, exclaimed,
“Why, Hagar! how frightfully pale you are! Are you ill?”
“No”—began Hagar, but Raymond, by a tight pressure of her arm, arrested
her speech, and answered for her.
“_Yes_—she is indisposed, but a night’s rest will restore her; go to
your chamber, love,” and taking a lamp from a side-table he gave it to
her, and opening the door, held it for her to pass out. She went.
Rosalia, springing up at the same moment, exclaimed,
“Let me go with you to your room, dear Hagar, if you are not well!”
“_No!_ I am going with her. Good-night, dear Rosalia,” said Raymond,
suddenly starting up to follow his wife. Rosalia looked distressed,
perplexed, and finally paced slowly and thoughtfully away to the chamber
next the nursery, where she slept.
“Hagar,” said Raymond, as soon as he reached her chamber.
“Well!”
“How did you spend the day after I left the house this morning?”
“I kept my room with a headache, with a _real_ headache, the first I
ever had in my life.”
“Is that an intended reproach?”
“No, I only mentioned it as a fact.”
“Where was your cousin?”
“She went to town shopping with Mrs. Collins in the forenoon, and drove
out with the children in the afternoon.”
“Then she was not with you all day?”
“No.”
“Had no opportunity of questioning you about your ill looks?”
“No; I said I had the headache, and so I really had; and when I kept my
room she understood it to be from a slight indisposition.”
“But now her suspicions are excited—she sees that your misery rises from
a deeper source than a slight physical indisposition—take care, Hagar,
that she does not see the _cause_. She sees that there is trouble
between us; be sure that you do not betray the reason, or, rather, the
_un_reason of this trouble, my lady.”
Hagar did not reply to this covert threat. She was not herself; a
heaviness, a stupor, weighed down her spirit; a reaction of the
excitement of her ardent temperament, an ebb in the high tide of her
life, left her weak and powerless. She lay there upon the lounge in her
dressing-room; it was yet too early to think of retiring, and Raymond,
taking advantage of the temporary torpor of her faculties, perhaps
mistaking her apathy for utter submission, sat down by her side, and
said,
“Hagar, I am very tired of this, very thoroughly worn out with this; we
have been beating the air long enough, let us come to something
substantial. I will probe this wound of yours—extract the bullet that is
festering in your bosom; tell me now, in so many words, of what have you
to complain?”
“I do not complain.”
“You _do_; not in words, certainly, but in manner; now what is it all
about—why are you growing more sullen, ugly, and repulsive every day?”
“_Do_ not ask me! Alas! have I not tried to be patient? _I_ have kept my
thoughts and feelings down, like wronged, suffering, and desperate
captives in the hold of a slave ship, fearing to lift the hatches even,
lest they should break forth, spreading pestilence and death!”
She looked so _unutterably wretched_ as she lay there, with her small
hands pressed tightly upon her brow, and as her lips, quivering, sprang
apart and closed; that Raymond, pitying her, stooped, and placing his
hands under her arms, raised her up, and laid her head upon his bosom,
looking kindly in her face all the while, as he said,
“Hagar, I _do_ love you—always shall, always _did_, Hagar, from the
first instant that my eye fell upon you and caught yours—from the first
moment that I, a youth, singled you, an infant, out from all the world
as my own—for life, past death, and through eternity, recognising you
for my own, knowing you for my own—_claiming_ you for my own, preferring
you, a little, ugly, perverse infant, to all the fair and gentle maidens
of my own age, because I knew that into your little bit of a body was
crowded and pressed the soul and life, the fire and spirit of twenty
women—_claiming_ you for my own, and waiting until you should grow up to
womanhood, and never fearing or dreaming that any one would ever cleave
my life down through the middle, and bear off the other half of it—_my
Hagar_—for when was ever _I_ jealous, Hagar?”
She clasped her arms tightly around his neck, and buried her face in his
bosom as she answered,
“But my own, _own_—you know that I was not attractive,—that no one would
wish to dispute your claim to me.”
“On the contrary, I knew that you _were_ attractive, and that Gusty May
set up a very clamorous claim to you, and that you only needed to be
further known, to raise many aspirants to your hand among superficial
and impetuous young men like Gusty, who, if their eye is pleased and
fancy tickled, believe themselves in love. No, Hagar! I trusted _in
you_—not out of you—IN YOU, for the security of our love and life.”
“My own! my own! you _might_ well have trusted in me—_may_ well trust in
me.”
“I did, and shall _always_. I married the little infant when I raised
her on my knee at that wedding party given to Sophie and my father; I
found my little wife then, and knew that she acknowledged my claim, saw
in her splendid eyes, fascinated to my own, that she felt and
acknowledged me.”
“Oh, I did! I did! Looking up into your face I saw a soul radiating
there that seemed to draw my spirit up to meet it! and I felt, Raymond,
I felt that I had for the first time met a spirit that I had neither the
power nor the will to resist in anything _long_; for see, Raymond! I,
who defied Sophie and your father, told _you_ the same moment, with my
face in your bosom, that I would do anything in the world you wished me
to do. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes, love, I remember every single item.”
“And I, who laughed and shouted defiance to society in following my wild
tastes,—I, who so desperately resisted the growing and surrounding
influence of your will, how I permitted it to close upon me at last.”
“You did _not_ permit it: you had no choice of permitting. You could not
help it, love; _that_ makes you my own, and my own for ever, Hagar!”
“Yes, but are you _mine_! as surely, oh! Raymond?”
“I love you, Hagar.”
“You love me—you say so—will you tell, then, since this is an hour of
tender reminiscences, of confidences, and explanation—will you tell me
why, since you love me, you torture me so much; tell me why, when loving
me, you make me suffer so much, and I will forgive it—indeed, I _have_
forgiven it—could not help forgiving it!”
“You have nothing to forgive, love, and you must not use the word in
reference to me. Yes, I will tell you, Hagar, for just now I am loving
you very much, my own especial Hagar, and perhaps I may never be in a
mood to tell you again. Listen, then: I believe I am naturally, or
rather apparently, very gentle and tender, am I not?”
“Yes, very; but—”
“At least! I have very keen and sensitive nerves, delicate features,
fair complexion, and all that go to make up the idea of softness and
sensibility?”
“Yes.”
“That I got from my mother.”
“Your mother! Ah! you never mentioned her to me before!”
“And shall never mention her again—hush! let us resume—I _have_
sensibility, sensitiveness—_but!_ away down in the deeps of my soul have
a perverse spirit of great strength, power, and malice—where it came
from I do not know; how it got there I do not know—but, Hagar, you are
rather apt to arouse it—this spirit aroused, oppresses, seeks to subdue
even those I love, when they resist me—this spirit in its awakened
strength takes pleasure in its calm force of resistance, of overbearing
and bearing down opposition, and the stronger and fiercer the opposition
the greater the pleasure of the victory. It was that spirit that incited
me last night, but it is not always in the ascendant—there, Hagar! that
is the secret of the attraction your strong, fierce, proud nature had
for me! it gives me plenty of employment, life, you see. Yet, Hagar, I
love you.”
While he spoke, Hagar’s face had changed—one might say she was
transfigured before him! her countenance grew radiant in inspiration as
an angel’s, and her voice was softer, sweeter than you ever heard it, as
she said,
“I am glad you told me, Raymond, it has saved me and you—it is well you
have told me. That spirit! it is, as you say, a _perverse_ spirit, an
_evil_ spirit, a spirit from hell; and I will give it no further
employment, no further life, Raymond—no more food; I will not nurture it
by pride or anger. It is a spirit of hate; I will meet it by a spirit of
love; when it comes to war with me it shall find so little resistance,
so little to do, that it shall fall into death from inactivity.”
“You, too, have your bosom’s foe, Hagar—but it is not now, as you would
say, ‘in the ascendant.’ Yes! you are jealous! jealous of Rosalia! Oh!
_shameful_, Hagar!”
“Alas! it is true; I wish it were not; how can I help it?” said she, as
the cloud came over her face, obscuring its glory—“_how_ can I help it?
It is gone now, the jealousy—but it will come back again, and nearly
madden me! I know it will; and how can I help it, when I see that I
cannot give you any pleasure, by all my efforts; you do not like my
singing nor my playing—you hang over Rosalia’s chair all the evening,
and forget my very existence.”
“I do not, Hagar! I never forget you for a single instant; how _can_ I
ever forget you, when your spirit clings so closely about me always?”
“Does it?” smiled Hagar. “_I_ know it does, and I am glad you feel it,
Raymond—glad you feel it, even at her side.”
“Nonsense, Hagar! I love Rosalia—or rather I should say I _like_
Rosalia, the fair, gentle girl, as I like her soft music, as I like a
summer prospect, as I like the fragrance of growing flowers—as _she_
loves her pet doves. I like her because, like all other fair, sweet, and
melodious things, her presence gives me pleasure—a pleasure that I do
not choose to give up for your jealousy, Hagar! So I charge you, love,
if you cannot exterminate the ‘green-eyed monster,’ do not let him
appear before Rosalia, and frighten the poor girl away from me. God!
Hagar, if it comes to that, you will exasperate me to phrensy.” He spoke
with unwonted energy, but quickly controlling himself, he said in a more
gentle tone, “Be on your guard, love—be on your guard; this is extremely
absurd, very ridiculous, not to say unjust to me; how you worry yourself
and me! Kiss me, my Hagar.”
“‘Kiss’ you, Raymond! a thousand, thousand times!” exclaimed she; all
her natural wildness rebounding in the spring of her spirits, “a
thousand times, dear Raymond; and I will try never to doubt you again,”
and she clasped her arms about his neck, and drawing down his head,
caressed him freely and gladly as a joyous child might. Her jealousy
seemed gone for the time—a weight was lifted off, and that evening and
the next day she went about with dancing eyes and with an exultant step,
as if the spring of her little foot impelled the earth forward in its
orbit! It was the first time Raymond had fully opened his heart to her,
and she felt grateful for the confidence; she understood many things
that had before been dark to her, she _thought_ she understood _all_.
_Had_ he indeed opened and revealed his _whole_ heart? and if so, what
had induced him, with his proud reserve, to be so communicative? Reader,
had Raymond Withers spoken what we have heard him speak, _two weeks
before_, it would have been “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
_but_ the truth;” _now_, however, in the recesses of his bosom lurked a
sentiment as yet revealed in words to no one, as yet unrecognised by
himself; _but_ yet a sentiment that was growing stronger day by day,
that was already beginning to betray itself in unguarded moments.
I repeat it, jealousy seldom prevents, frequently suggests the very
infidelity it fears. It has been said that “Unjust suspicion is apt to
lead to that which is well founded. It is often very dangerous to hint
an evil, though to warn against it: for constant suspicion of harm puts
an idea into the head that otherwise might never have occurred; and this
idea once fairly in is not so easily got out. Thus it is that unjust
jealousy gives rise to real unfaithfulness. Can there be a stronger
argument against too ready suspicion?”[7]
Footnote 7:
Ramsay on Human Happiness.
Poor Hagar! through her besetting sin, through her unjust suspicion, she
had kept the evil before his eyes until he had grown familiar with it.
This was the more dangerous, not only from his peculiar temperament, and
from the extreme beauty, grace, tenderness, and artlessness of the rival
she dreaded; but also from the fact of their isolation from the
moderating and correcting influence of general society. But incited by a
vague consciousness of this scarcely acknowledged sentiment, he had
opened his heart to Hagar, exposing “almost” _all_ its secrets, and now
could she have continued to trust him, _her_ faith might have saved his
fidelity—could she have _continued_ to trust him! but she could not—her
waylaying sin could not be so promptly driven away for ever. Could an
evil thought be dismissed, a guilty wish repressed, or a sinful passion
crushed by one effort of the will, by one fell blow, many a moral
victory we should see, many a moral hero hail, and the road to perdition
be no longer paved with good intentions; but when blow after blow has
been struck upon the waylaying foe, when after each repulsion it has
retired only to rest, to gather force, to renew the attack, nothing but
the highest moral courage and perseverance can keep up the warfare, can
insure the victory. Hagar’s waylaying foe had only been beaten back for
a time; a few days passed and it returned in power, in ferocity, with
violence; for _now_ Hagar’s doubts of her husband’s fidelity of heart
were becoming but too reasonable!
Reader, shall I shock _you_, and distress myself, by a recital of some
of the scenes that disgraced the next two or three weeks? Hagar’s
confirmed suspicions, anguish, and terror? Raymond’s stern, calm,
implacable repression of her passion? The death throes of her suppressed
and smothered rage? The indomitable strength of will by which he held
her down—so that through all this, for many weeks, the innocent and
artless Rosalia had no suspicion of _his_ guilty passion, or of _her_
racking jealousy! The poor girl wandered distressed and perplexed over
the house, wondering in vain at a sorrow and an anger of which she could
see no reasonable cause. If she inquired of Raymond, he would smile
gaily and give her a light or an indifferent answer, and ask her for a
song. If she inquired of Hagar, she would turn from her with a burning
cheek and heaving bosom, without reply; if she pressed the question,
Hagar would exclaim, in an agony,
“Nothing! nothing! don’t ask me, Rosalia,” and leave the room; for
Raymond had said to his wife, while his hand, talon-like, grasped her
little shoulder, and his eye struck fiercely into hers,
“Alarm this girl, give her one single inkling of the diabolical
suspicions you cherish, and, as Heaven hears me, I will never see or
speak to you thenceforth!” and she saw and felt that he would have kept
his word. Yet, though she concealed the cause of her sorrow from
Rosalia, she could not act the part of a hypocrite; she could not bring
herself to feel kindly, or to act kindly, towards the girl who, however
unconsciously, was wiling away her husband’s affections.
Rosalia grew daily more dejected—pining for the love, the tenderness,
the sympathy and confidence, the free and affectionate intercourse with
her friends, to which she had been accustomed; which was the great
necessity of her life; without which she could not exist. She confined
herself as much as possible to the nursery, and to Hagar’s two children,
who were just beginning to notice and to love her. She longed for Sophie
and Captain Wilde, and for the sweet home like feeling she enjoyed with
them. She was beginning to dream of them frequently, and to wake weeping
for them. She was beginning to regret the tears that prevented her
accompanying them, to wonder whether it were possible now to go to them.
She was very unhappy here. She felt herself in an atmosphere of coldness
and vague censure, that chilled and depressed her. She felt strange and
lonesome now, yet she tried to make herself agreeable to all, exerted
herself to cheer Hagar when she saw her depressed, to amuse Raymond when
he was grave.
One evening, after a particularly unsuccessful attempt to disperse the
gloom of the drawing-room by her sweet music, she had sought her own
chamber in despair; finding Mrs. Collins there engaged in sorting linen,
she fell weeping bitterly upon the bed, and exclaiming through her sobs,
“Mrs. Collins! what _is_ the matter in this house, can you tell me?”
“It is not my place to tell you, Miss Aguilar, and perhaps I even do not
know.”
“But what do you _think_, then, Mrs. Collins? oh! please tell me, it is
not from idle curiosity, but because, because I do love Hagar and
Raymond _so_ much, and they are both _so_ unhappy, especially Hagar, and
they will not either of them give me a bit of satisfaction, and I want
so much to know if I can do anything to mend it; tell me what is the
matter, Mrs. Collins?”
“Young ladies should be very particular, Miss Aguilar; they may give
trouble where they little think it.”
“‘Particular,’ why, I _am_ particular, am I not? I dress myself
carefully and practise my music every day, and that is all Sophie and
Captain Wilde required of me; and, lo! if I were _ever_ so slovenly and
idle, I should not think _that_ would make so much trouble; and even if
it did, I should think that they would tell me of it—but it can never be
_that_.”
“You do not understand me, Miss Aguilar.”
“What is it then you mean, Mrs. Collins?”
“I mean young ladies should not make too free,” said the old lady,
looking solemnly through her spectacles at the girl. “No, they should
not make too free.”
“‘Too free,’ ‘too free,’ _how_ too free?”
“Too free—_with gentlemen_.”
“Too free with gentlemen! who is too free with gentlemen? You don’t mean
_me_, do you, Mrs. Collins; oh! no, you can’t mean me, because I do not
see any gentlemen to be free with, you know! No, of course you don’t
mean _me_; what do you mean, Mrs. Collins?”
“I mean _you_, Miss Aguilar; I mean that _you_ must not be too free with
gentlemen.”
“But I don’t _see_ any.”
“_None?_”
“No, indeed! to be sure none—oh! except Raymond, but then I love _him_
because he is dear Hagar’s husband and my relative, and because _he_ is
_always_ good to me; so good! so gentle! so tender _always_! but of
course you do not mean _him_, oh no! and I should like to know what you
_do_ mean, dear Mrs. Collins?”
“Have I not heard you speak of a lady, the mother of your betrothed?”
“Yes, Mrs. Buncombe; why?”
“You had better write to Mrs. Buncombe to come for you, and you had
better return and remain with her until your people come back from
foreign parts.”
“Oh! I should like that, if Hagar would let me go.”
“She will let you go, depend upon it.”
“But now that I come to think of it, I cannot leave Hagar either; poor
Hagar! while she is so sad, it would be a sin.”
“Miss Aguilar, your cousin would prefer you to go, I am sure, and you
had better take my advice.”
“I am sure I should be glad to go if I thought Hagar could spare me, and
I will see about it.”
“_Do_, my dear child—and—do not mention that _I_ suggested it to you.”
“Why not, Mrs. Collins, why must I not? I don’t love secrets, I never
keep secrets—now why must I not say that you told me?”
“Well! say so then, my dear, and say at the same time that I think you
sickly and _weak_, _very_ weak, and that I think a visit South would
benefit your health.”
The old lady had finished folding and packing away her bed and table
linen, and locking the clothes press she took up her candle and bidding
Rosalia good night, left the room.
Poor Rosalia! by the miserable failure of her education she had been
sent into the world, into life, beautiful, fragrant, tempting, and
defenceless as the conservatory exotic. Nurtured in the warm atmosphere
of an enervating tenderness, she lived only in the love of those around
her, and pined when it was withdrawn as the flowers languish in the
cold. Rosalia was drooping—winter was approaching, yet the face of
nature was not fading, withering from the withdrawal of the sun’s direct
rays, faster than was Rosalia’s heart in the surrounding atmosphere of
coldness. The whole house was a chill clime, in which there was but one
spot of warmth, the crib of Hagar’s children. The whole day was a dreary
blank, until the evening hour of music came, when she would try to
please and cheer by her little songs. The whole family seemed strange,
cold, or indifferent to her with one exception, Raymond Withers. _His_
manner was always affectionate, his glance always fell gently on her
eye, his tones smoothly, softly on her ear, his hand tenderly on her
arm, and the doomed girl began, if not to love him only of all the
family, at least to find return only in his love. As yet this affection
of Rosalia was as pure as the maiden’s love for all others.
Had Rosalia’s intellect and conscience, her moral accountability for the
use of time and talent, been cultivated in the same proportion as her
sensibilities and affections, she would not have been thrown thus
helpless upon the tenderness and sympathy of others; she would have
possessed a self-sustaining principle, would have found occupation in
mental resources. But this was not so; she had been fondled, praised,
and spoiled, until intellect was half drowned in sensibility, mind
enervated nearly to fatuity.
Days passed. Raymond Withers now too surely, terribly felt that his love
for Rosalia was no longer pure brotherly affection. It was an intense
and an absorbing passion. He began to struggle against its nearly
overwhelming power—he began to avoid the charming girl. _Now_ could
Hagar have trusted him; could she have believed in the _power_ of
redeeming qualities that really existed in his heart; the solid
substratum of good that lay beneath all this superficial alluvion of
wilfulness and effeminacy; her faith might yet have saved him; saved
herself from much anguish. As it was, Raymond Withers struggled on alone
against the advancing power of his great temptation. He might have
struggled longer, he might have struggled successfully, but that the
very means he took accelerated the crisis, the catastrophe. He began to
avoid Rosalia; declined her music; evaded her questions; repulsed her
gentle attentions, until the guileless girl, utterly unable to
comprehend her position, grew wretched, more wretched every day, in the
thought that her _last friend, her only present friend_, as in her heart
she began to style Raymond, had fallen from her; and by the fatality
that makes us set a higher value upon a possession that is passing away,
Rosalia began to prize his affection exceedingly—to desire its
continuance more than all things—to lament its seeming loss
passionately—to strive to win it back. “The clouds came on slow—slower;”
the clouds whose vapors had been collected in, and evolved from their
own bosoms, and raised to gather black and heavy in their sky, to break
in thunder on their heads!
Three circumstances combined to bring on the catastrophe of this
household wreck, three circumstances, reader, that I wish you to notice,
as I desire particularly to call attention here, and now, to the great
importance of the formation of character in childhood and youth, and to
the awful truth that the blackest treachery, the deepest guilt, the
direst misery, the utmost perdition of men and women may sometimes be
traced to the smallest, seemingly the most harmless mistakes in the
education of boys and girls. Perhaps I have already been tedious upon
this subject; perhaps I have dealt “in vain repetitions;” yet, in
tracing the rise and progress of a guilty passion, can I be too emphatic
in forcing the causes that produced this upon attention? These causes,
then, I said there were three that conspired to bring down this
impending thunderbolt.
First, Hagar’s jealousy. We have seen how inevitably that jealousy
sprang from a want of the faith that had been chilled to death in her
heart by the coldness and neglect of her guardians in infancy. We have
seen how that jealousy, by its violence, exasperated the anger of her
husband; by its injustice (for in its commencement it was unjust),
alienated his affections; by its pertinacity, suggested and kept before
him the evil thought until it grew familiar. So much for the baleful
effect of her jealousy upon Raymond. Its influence upon Rosalia may be
summed up in a very few words—by manifesting itself in coldness and
aversion, it threw the tender-hearted and guileless girl upon the ready
sympathy and affection of Raymond for consolation. Do you now see the
madness of this jealousy, and its powerful agency in bringing on the
desolation of heart and home it feared and dreaded?
Second, Rosalia’s tenderness—tenderness unsupported by strength of
principle, heart unprotected by mind. We have seen that this softness
was no more nor less than the feebleness of a character enervated by
fond and foolish indulgence in her infancy. We have seen that this
weakness made her dependent upon the love of those around her as the
very breath of life; we have seen that when repulsed by Hagar’s
coldness, it threw her for sympathy upon the affections of the only
friend at hand; one whom, of all others, just at this crisis she should
have been guarded against.
Third, the self-indulgence of Raymond. A delicacy cultivated and refined
for years into an effeminacy that _seemed_ harmless enough, yet that, as
time passed, insidiously undermined his moral strength, rendering him
daily more averse to self-denial, until he became incapable of
self-resistance.
Could either of several good principles now have been brought into
exercise, it would have, even _now_, arrested the impending catastrophe;
could Hagar, by prayer, by effort, have thrown off her jealousy, have
practised faith, candor, charity—could she have shown kindness to
Rosalia, who was, as yet, entirely innocent in thought, word, and
deed—could she have pitied and forgiven Raymond, who, as yet, was
guiltless in act or intention. Or, could Rosalia have sought aid from
heaven, and balanced her gentleness by self-sustaining strength upon its
feet. Or, lastly, could Raymond have awakened and aroused his great
latent moral strength from the bathos of luxury in which it was half
drowned; could he have risen and shaken himself like a lion in his
strength, throwing off the moral lethargy stealing upon him; could he
have risen as Samson arose in his might, breaking the fetters that bound
him, they might yet have been saved.
Alas! They seemed all under a spell, while the cloud of destiny came on,
and on. A gloom settled on their hearth that nothing could dispel, a
deep darkness stole through the house that neither sunlight nor
firelight could brighten, a coldness gathered in their home that neither
sun heat nor fire heat could warm, a silence fell around them that music
itself could not break—moral gloom, moral darkness, moral cold, moral
silence. The darkness, the shadow of the overhanging cloud of impending
fate; the silence, the stillness that precedes the earthquake, while the
fires rage and leap beneath; the awful stillness of the coming typhoon.