CONFESSION.
I was so young—I loved him so—I had
No mother—God forgot me—and I fell!
BROWNING—BLOT ON THE ‘SCUTCHEON.
A retrospect of several hours is necessary here. You will remember that
during the drive home from Hardbargain, Mrs. Georgia Clifton had watched
Zuleime with much interest and curiosity, and with more perspicuity.
When the unfortunate girl had sprung from the carriage, and fled up the
steps into the house, Mrs. Clifton had followed her. Instead of going up
into her chamber, she had passed directly through the hall, and gone out
at the back door—Georgia having kept near her. There was the kitchen
garden at the back of the house, and then the vineyard, and then the
orchard—through all these she successively passed, with the same wild,
hurried gait, and entered the forest beyond, and descended into the deep
glen, through which the mountain-stream roared. It was very difficult to
follow the reckless steps of the fugitive down this rough declivity, and
while cautiously descending, with the aid of projecting fragments of
rock and smaller branches of trees and bushes, Georgia lost sight of the
girl. When she reached the bottom of the gorge, through which the
torrent raged and raved, Zuleime was no where to be seen.
The night was very dark, and though a few large, brilliant stars were to
be seen directly over head, yet low from the horizon, heavy, black
masses of clouds were slowly rolling up. And the wind moaned and died
away at intervals—prophetic of the winter’s storm. The single, large
stars overhead were reflected in the stream—not clearly and calmly, but
plunging and leaping with the wild water. The banks each side lay
shrouded in gloom and mystery, rocks and trees indistinctly blended
together in dark and sombre hues. The everlasting mountains stood
around, vast, vague, and awful. The seven white peaks gleamed up in the
back ground, like the ghostly genii of the scene. A shiver of
superstitious fear shook the frame of Georgia, and she had turned to
retrace her steps home, when a sound between a moan and a suffocating
sob arrested her purpose. She crept towards the spot whence the sound
proceeded, and there, half hidden in the deep gloom of overhanging
willows, she dimly discerned the figure of the unhappy girl, bending
over the stream, and gazing intently upon the water, where the
reflection of the stars leaped and plunged with the waves. As if
communing with herself, she murmured—“There is peace there! There is
peace there!” Then her form bent lower, her gaze grew more earnest and
intense, as though body, soul and spirit were irresistibly fascinated,
drawn down by the glamour of the water! And—“There is peace, deep peace
there,” she muttered! How stormy must have been the soul that saw deep
peace in the raging torrent! Her eyes shone in the dusk with a bright,
phosphoric light, and still pouring their splendor upon the dark, wild
water, she murmured—“Peace! deep peace.” Suddenly up flew her arms, and
she sprang forward.
The ready hand of Georgia caught her shoulder and pulled her back,
exclaiming—
“Mad girl! What are you about to do?”
Zuleime sprang around with her eyes all wide and ablaze, like one
suddenly waking up from a terrible dream, and not yet quite brought to
consciousness. Georgia drew her away from the dangerous proximity of the
torrent. Zuleime threw her hands to her head with sudden recollection
and intensity of consciousness, and sunk down at the feet of the lady,
clasping her knees, and exclaiming—
“Oh! you don’t know what you’ve done! Why did you pluck me back! There
was peace there! The only peace left for me!”
“You are frantic, miserable girl! _What_ is the meaning of this
madness?” asked Georgia, in a stern, curt tone. Convulsive sobs, shaking
as with a tempest the form of the girl, alone answered her.
“_What_ will your father—what will your intended husband think of this?
Say! Speak! What do you suppose Major Cabell—”
“Oh! _do not_ speak of him!” gasped the girl.
“Will you tell me what you mean by this conduct?” sneered Georgia.
“Mamma—” commenced Zuleime but her voice broke down.
“Zuleime! come get up and come home!”
“Oh, no, no, no! _Not_ home! _Never_ home again!”
“Once more, what am I to think of this frantic behaviour.”
“Mamma!”
“Don’t call me mamma, if you please! It may not be pleasant or politic,
to acknowledge that tender relationship. But explain yourself, lest I
bring you to those who will demand the explanation with less
forbearance!”
“Mercy! mercy! I will tell you anything! everything! Only do not kill my
father with the story!”
“Speak, then!”
“Lady—”
“Well!”
But some feeling stronger than fear, gripped her heart and stopped her
speech.
“Zuleime! How long will you try my patience?”
“Madam—”
Another hesitation.
“_What_, then?”
“I have been—a wife! I am—a widow! I am fated to be—”
“Well,” asked Georgia, in a deep-drawn breath between her teeth, “you
are fated to be—”
“_A mother!_” breathed the girl, in a dying voice, covering her face
with both hands, and sinking lower on the ground.
There was a long, deep pause, filled up with the roar of the torrent and
the moan of the rising wind. Suddenly up sprang Zuleime, with fire in
her eyes, and made a dash towards the water. The swift arm of Georgia
caught and dragged her back. No word was spoken yet. The impulse of
frenzy passed off, and Zuleime sunk into her old posture.
“Get up,” at last said Georgia, half-shaking, half-putting the girl upon
her feet. “Get up and come with me.”
And she drew her to a fragment of rock, at a safer distance, pushed her
down on the seat, and dropped herself by her side.
“Now, tell me of this,” she commanded, in a hard, curt tone. “You were
married?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Who was your husband?”
“Ah, you know! You _must_ know! He who died in yonder field of blood,
under the tomahawk of the Shoshonowa—I am very wretched!”
“Stay!—is this true—about the marriage, I mean?”
“True as God’s Word!”
“Certainly the marriage was not legal without your father’s consent, and
would have been annulled by him. But now he will permit his consent to
be supposed. Let’s see! the widow of an army officer entitled to his
half-pay, perhaps; I do not know—perhaps to a pension, too, as he died
in the field of battle. Zuleime, upon the whole, I think that you were
rash to attempt suicide. Your position and prospects are not so bad. If
Major Cabell is anxious to possess you, now that he supposes you to be a
maudlin, love-sick girl, grieving yourself to death over the grave of
your lover, he will be quite as willing to marry you a year hence, when
he knows you to be the widow of Captain Fairfax—for _that_, I
understand, was his rank when he fell. Come, girl, live! Acknowledge
your marriage, like a truthful woman! Bring your child into God’s world
like a Christian woman! And after a sufficient time has elapsed, marry
Major Cabell, like a sensible woman! For I do assure you, that the
gallant Major is sufficiently enamored of your young beauty to wait that
length of time, if compelled to do so.”
“Ah, yes! I think he is enamored of me as the Shoshonowa was of poor
Frank’s hair!” bitterly said the girl.
“This marriage must be announced at once! Who performed the ceremony?”
“Old Mr. Saunders, the Baptist preacher.”
“What! He who was found dead in his bed.”
“Yes, yes, it was he!”
“Pity for your sake that he is dead! But, you doubtless had some
confidant, some witness—Kate Kavanagh, perhaps, or some one else? Say!
speak! There was some witness to your marriage, who can be produced to
prove it?”
“No! There was none! It was _so_ sudden!”
“None!—no proof of your marriage? Yet stop—stay!—there is a chance yet,
I believe; I do not know. You were married with a license, of course?”
“Yes, yes!”
“The county clerk who issued it will probably remember the occurrence.
That will be something in your favor, though, alas! only imperfect,
circumstantial evidence; for the mere taking out of a license is no
conclusive proof of a marriage.”
“Ah, great or small, as proof it is of no avail. The license was
procured _blank_, for Carolyn and Archer, because he had forgotten her
full name, and it was afterwards filled out with our names.”
“No matter. You were married with it. And now I remember a saving thing!
The clergyman who married you of course affixed his certificate of
marriage to the license, and gave it to you. Where is it? All depends
now upon that. Where is it?”
“I do not know! I never saw it! If the parson gave one, probably Frank
took charge of it!”
Again a pause fell between them, and the noises of the wind and waters
arose in gloomy concert. At last Georgia spoke—
“Miserable girl! And so you have no proof whatever of this _asserted_
marriage?”
“None! none! But oh, what does that matter, after all? God knows that we
loved, and _were_ married, as He knows that we will soon be reunited!”
“Wretched girl! who will credit the story?”
“No one in the world, perhaps! But, ah! what odds? Could the proving of
my marriage bring _him_ back to life, or give my father happiness?”
“Most wretched girl! You seem quite lost to the shame you have brought
upon yourself! the dishonor you have brought upon your family!”
“Ah, go on! You cannot say anything to me so bitter as my heart is
saying all the time!”
“Your father! Your old, gray-haired father! to bring him to shame in his
old age! Can he survive the knowledge of your fall?”
“I know he cannot! I know it! Oh, oh!”
“Carolyn, too! To destroy all her prospects in life. Who will ever wed
the sister of a supposed—”
“Ah, spare me that! Why did you pluck me back! the river would have
covered all!”
“Because I did not know or dream your folly! Zuleime, your father, who
could bear your death, could never survive your disgrace!”
“Oh, God, I feel it!”
“Zuleime—_you must die_!”
A pause, when but for the roar of the torrent, and the howl of the wind,
their very hearts might have been heard slowly beating.
“Zuleime, you must not live to bring shame upon us! You must die!”
“Ah! Why did you hinder me when it would not have been a crime?”
“What mean you?”
“I was mad then! I knew not what I did! God would not have charged me
with my death! I am sane now!—sane, though most wretched!”
“Zuleime, you must die!—not in reality, but in appearance. It must be
believed that you are dead—dead by your own act, as you intended. And I
will provide for your escape and your future support.”
“Alas! lady, what is it you advise me to do? Deceive my poor father, so
cruelly, and never, never undeceive him again? And never, never see him
again?”
“Lost girl! if I had not saved you an hour ago, would you have been
alive to ask the question?”
“Ah, no! But, oh, my father! Who will comfort him?”
“Who would have comforted him had you effected your purpose this hour?
What would comfort him for your degradation? Foolish girl, that will
console him for your supposed death, which never could console him for
your fall—_time_. Besides, if you are supposed to be dead, it will not
only save us all from shame, but your father will be your heir, and can
appropriate that thirty thousand dollars to the payment of his debts.
Zuleime, it seems to me you owe us all this sacrifice.”
“I—I am very weak and miserable. I—I scarcely know right from wrong! Do
what you please with me, only console my father!”
“And at any rate, girl, this plan is far better than the
self-destruction you meditated awhile ago. By this plan you will be able
to save your child.”
“Ah! to what end? To be as miserable as its mother?”
“Zuleime! time presses. To-night you must journey to L——, and take the
stage thence to Richmond. I have a negro here on whose secrecy I can
depend; he shall take two horses from the stable and convey you to L——
in time to meet the Richmond stage. I will give you a letter that you
must deliver to its address as soon as you reach the city. Get up now
and come with me,” said Georgia, taking her hand to assist her in
rising.
The unhappy girl mechanically yielded herself to the guidance of “the
dark ladie,” and they ascended the glen.
Retracing their steps through forest, field, orchard, vineyard and
garden, they reached the house, and entered by the back door. The hall
was deserted; the family being at that hour gathered around their parlor
fire, and the servants being at supper.
“Zuleime, go quietly up into your chamber and get ready, while I go down
and find the man I spoke of,” said Georgia.
Zuleime mechanically obeyed——. The next hour, while her father and
sister and friends were enjoying their happy evening re-union in the
warm, bright parlor, the wretched Zuleime, through the dark night, and
the howling wind, commenced her journey. Of what followed the discovery
of her loss, you are already possessed.