HESTER PRYNNE'S SECRET
I remember so well the morning of the great discovery. It was one of
those damp, rainy, grey days when happy people can afford to realise
contentment indoors, and we were a very comfortable group indeed:
Margarita sorting music, Roger drawing plans for a new chimney, Miss
Jencks shaking a coral rattle for the delectation of the tiny Mary,
who lay in her shallow basket under the lee of the great
spinning-wheel, and I hugging the fire and watching them. I considered
Roger's reforms in the matter of chimneys too thorough-going for the
slender frame of the house and told him so.
"You'll batter the thing to pieces," I said, "see here!" and lifting
my stick, which I had been poking at the baby after the irrelevant
fashion of old bachelor friends, I hit out aimlessly at the side of
the fireplace and struck one of the bricks a smart blow on one end. It
turned slightly and slipped out of its place, and as I shouted
triumphantly and pulled it away, I displaced its neighbour, too, and
poked scornfully at a third. This, however, was firm as a rock, as
well as all the others near it, and with a little excited suspicion of
something to come I put my hand into the small, square chamber and
grasped a dusty, oblong box, of tin, from the feel of it.
"Roger!" I gasped, "look here!"
"Well, well," he answered vaguely, "don't pull the place down on us,
Jerry, that's all!"
"But Mr. Jerrolds appears to have discovered a secret hiding-place,"
Miss Jencks explained succinctly, and then they both stared at me
while I drew out from a good arm's reach a tin dispatch box, thick
with dust, a foot long and half as wide. I wiped the dust from its
surface, and on the cover we read (for Roger and Miss Jencks were at
my elbow now, I assure you!) written neatly with some sharp instrument
on the black japanned surface, the name _Lockwood Lee Prynne_. With
shaking fingers I lifted the lid, which opened readily, then
recollecting myself, passed the box to Roger. He glanced curiously at
Margarita, but she was absorbed in her music and as lost to us as a
contented child. He held the box on his knees, pushed back the lid
completely and lifted the top paper of all from the pile. It was badly
burned at the edges, as were the packets of letters, the columns
clipped from yellowed newspapers, the legal-looking paper with its
faded seal and the rough drawings on stained water-colour paper that
lay beneath it. It required no highly developed imagination to infer
that the contents of the box had been laid on the fire, to be snatched
away later.
Miss Jencks and I were frankly on tiptoe with excitement, but old
Roger's hand was steady as a rock as he unfolded the stiff yellow
parchment and spread before us the marriage certificate of Lockwood
Lee Prynne and Maria Teresa--alas, the shape of a fatally hot coal had
burned through the rest of the name! We skipped eagerly to the next
place of handwriting, the officiating clergyman and the parish--for
the form was English--but disappointment waited for us there, too, for
the same coal had gone through two thicknesses of the folded paper,
and only the date, Jan. 26, 186-, broke the expanse of print. The
initials of one witness "H.L." and the Christian name "Bertha," of
another, had escaped the coal on the third fold, and that was all.
Roger drew a long breath.
"So it's Prynne, after all," he said quietly, and unfolded the next
paper.
This was a few lines of writing in a careful, not-too-well-formed
hand, on a leaf torn from an old account-book, to judge from the
rulings.
"Sept. 24, 186-. The child was born at four this morning," it said
abruptly. "It may not live and she can't possibly. The Italian woman
baptised it out of a silver bowl. It is a dreadful thing, for now if
it does live it will be Romish, I suppose, but he said to let her have
her way, so it had to be. He is nearly crazy. He will kill himself, I
think. He knows she must die. It is named after her mother and an
outlandish lot of other names for different people. As soon as she is
dead the Italian woman is going back to Italy. I shall never leave
him."
The leaf was folded here and several lines badly burned. At the bottom
of the leaf I could just make out one more line.
"I cannot be sorry she is dying if I burn in hell for it. Hester
Prynne."
Roger and I stared at each other, the same thought in our minds. I had
imagined many things about the mysterious Hester, but never that she
bore that name, as a matter of simple fact. The connection with
Caliban had been too much for my overtrained imagination, and heaven
knows what baseless theories I had woven around what was at best (or
worst) a mere coincidence. For me the scarlet letter had flamed upon
what I now know to have been a blameless breast, and in my excited
fancy a stormy nature had suffered picturesque remorse where, as a
matter of fact, only a deep and patient devotion had endured its
unrecorded martyrdom of love unguessed and unreturned. So much for
Literature!
Next came two folded half-columns from a newspaper, one containing
only that dreadful list of the dead that our mothers read,
white-cheeked and dry-eyed, in the war time. Opposite the names of
Col. J. Breckenridge Lee and Lieut. J. Breckenridge Lee, Jr., were
hasty, blotted crosses. The other half-column, cut from another and
better printed sheet, recorded with a terrible, terse clearness the
shocking deaths of the aged Col. J.B. Lee and his son Lieut. J.B. Lee,
Jr., of the Confederate Army, at the hand of his son-in-law, Capt.
Lockwood Prynne, who was defending an encampment of the Northern
forces from a skirmishing party led by the rebel officers. Captain
Prynne recognised what he had done as the young lieutenant caught his
father in his arms and turned to stagger back, and rushing forward had
endeavoured to drag them to safety, receiving a shot himself that
shattered his arm, wounding him severely. His recovery was doubtful.
Under our sympathetic eyes the old tragedy lived again, the crisp,
cruel lines seemed printed in blood. It needed only the letter that
lay beneath to make everything clear.
"Dear Bob," the letter began in the unmistakable neat hand we had read
on the top of the box, "I cannot leave you without this word. I cannot
explain--my brain is on fire, I think--but try to judge with lenience.
Blood-poisoning set in, and my father died in hospital last week. On
his dying bed I swore to him that I would never raise my hand against
his country. I can't repeat all he said, but he's right, Bob, the
South is wrong! Secession is wrong. I brought the body home, but
mother could not come to the funeral. She is not at all violent, but
she will never be the same again--she didn't know me, Bob. I can't
describe how pitiful she is. Uncle James was her twin brother, you
know, and they were everything to each other. When we heard of Fort
Sumter she was nearly wild, and I promised her with my hand on her
Bible never to fight the South. I meant it then--my friends, my home
and you all. But I would have got her to release me if I could. But
she couldn't release me now, and I would die before I broke that
promise, the way she is now. I can't stay here. I couldn't look
anybody in the face. I wish I could be shot. I may be, yet. I am going
to Italy to see about those silk-worms for the plantation, that
father was interested in. The war can't last much longer and it will
be something to do. Mother is well looked after and I can't stay in
this country--it's not decent. Can you write to me, Bob? I don't ask
much--just write a line. What could I do? Write, for God's sake.
"LOCKWOOD LEE PRYNNE."
Below this signature, in a different hand, was scrawled:
"I return this letter. I have nothing to say.
"R. S. L."
Alas, alas, the pity of it! The grey moss and the blue forget-me-nots
grow together now over many a nameless grave, and Northern youth and
Southern maid pull daisy petals beside the sunken cannon ball; but the
ancient scar ploughed deep, and old records like this have heat enough
in them yet to sear the nerves of us who trembled, maybe, in the womb,
when those black lists of the wounded trembled in our mother's hands.
What a hideous thing it is! Can any bugle's screaming cover those
anguished cries, or any scarlet stripes soak up the spreading blood?
Bullets are merciful, my brothers, beside the cruel holes they pierce
in hearts they never touched.
Roger laid the papers and letter reverently to one side, and I, who
had been reading over his shoulder, brushed impatiently at my eyes. (I
was not entirely a well man yet, remember!) Below the newspaper lay a
signed deed, formally conveying a parcel of twenty acres of land,
carefully measured and described, to Lockwood Lee Prynne, his heirs
and assigns, and all the rest of the legal jargon. This was hardly
burned at all.
Of the two slim packets of letters one was badly charred: parts of it
fell away in Roger's hands, as he carefully opened it. I cannot
transcribe them literally, or even to any great length, for they are
too sad, and no good end would be served by commemorating to what
extent that fierce furnace of the Civil War burned away the natural
ties of kindred and neighbour and home. Enough that the few remaining
members spared out of what must have been a small family cut
Margarita's father definitely off from them, in terms no man could
have tried with any self-respect to modify. His father, a Northerner,
who had identified himself since his Southern marriage with his wife's
interests and kinsfolk, had lost touch with his own people, and a few
death notices, slipped in among the letters, seemed to point to an
almost complete loneliness, which Roger afterward verified. The other
packet held two letters only, one in Italian (which language I
learned, after a fashion, in order to read it) the other in French.
The Italian letter was not only scorched badly, but so blistered--one
did not need to ask how--that parts were quite illegible. The writer,
a man, evidently, a young man, probably, conveyed in satire so keen, a
contempt so bitter, a hatred so remorseless, that it was difficult to
believe it a letter from a brother to his sister. Beneath the
polished, scornful sentences--vitriol to a tender young heart--surged
a tempest of primitive rage that thrust one back into the Renaissance,
with its daggers and its smiles. "_Let me tell you, then, once and for
all_," ran one sentence, breaking out fiercely, "_that there is but
one country on earth which can shelter you and that villain--his own!
There I scorn to put my foot or allow the foot of any member of your
family, but let him or his victim leave it--and so long as I live my
vengeance shall search you out and wipe out this insult to my house,
my country and my church!_" The opening page was missing and the last
one was badly burned, so we had absolutely no clue as to the family
name.
Roger and I puzzled out enough of it to gather vaguely what the
situation must have been, and when we read the second letter it was
all clear. This second letter was burned and blistered, too, but its
simple, naive repetitions, its tender terror, its brave, affectionate
persistence, left little, even in their fragmentary condition, for us
to guess. I will give only a page here and there.
"_I have tried for four months not to write, but what you told me last
has proved too strong for me and I must.... Oh, my dear one, my more
than sister in this world, how could you have been permitted this
deadly sin? It may be I shall be damned for even this one letter--my
only one, for you must not write again. Sister Lisabetta suspects me
already, and asked me last week why I should talk with the baker's
daughter so secretly? So if she brings another letter I shall tell her
to destroy it. Write to me no more._"
Ah, now we knew! Strange indeed was the blood that ran in Margarita's
blue-veined wrist! No light and fleeting passion had brought her into
this world.
".... _When I remember that it was I who brought you the first letter,
I weep for hours. God forgive me, and Our Lady, but I thought it was
only some idle nonsense of Sister Dolores--she was always so light,
Dolores! They have sent her back to Spain--I know you loved her best!
Sister Lisabetta found a bit of your gown caught on the cypress tree.
How dared you risk your life so? I swore I knew nothing, nor did I,
about what she asked me. The Archbishop came...._"
I think I see the little figure slipping from bough to bough under the
stars, the odour of all the vineyards is in my nostrils, the splashing
of the Convent fountain sounds in my ears!
".... _I could not sleep at night after that wicked letter of how you
love him--how dare you, a vowed nun, write such sinful words? It must
be, as they say, wrong to pray for you! Do not try to excuse yourself
because your brother devoted you against your will--you were happy
till he climbed the tree and saw you! Only Satan can make it so that
one wicked look between the eyes should make a man and woman mad
for--I will not remember that sinful letter, I will not! Maria, thou
art lost!_"
And so, even as she and Roger looked and could not look away and never
after lost each other's eyes, even so, her mother looked at her lover
and looking, lost (or so she thought) her soul! The wheel turns ever,
as Alif taught me.
".... _What good can such a marriage do? No Catholic could marry you,
I am sure. It is no marriage. Your brother wrote you the truth. I do
not wonder that you will never read or speak an Italian word
again--you have disgraced Italy. But as he says, you are no true
Italian--your English mother and her Protestant blood has made this
horrible thing possible. Her death was a judgment on you._"
Oh, these cruel, gentle women! And on these breasts we long to lay our
heads!
".... _I do not wonder that all his countrymen are against him, and
that he must live alone all his days. Even in that wild land blasphemy
has its deserts, then. But I cannot help being glad for you that his
kinswoman will be your servant, for you are ill fitted to grow maize
with the painted savages, ma plus douce! But how strange that even a
distant relative of one so comme il faut should be of a sort to do
this!_
"_Alas, I talk as if I were again of the world! If Raoul had not died,
I should have been...._"
Here the letter was blotted beyond recognition for a whole, closely
written page. It must have been tender here, and one sees the poor
Maria fairly kissing it to pieces. I was grateful to the writer.
".... _That you should be a mother! And soon! I cannot comprehend it.
My head swims. Reverend Mother dreamed of you so, suckling it, with a
halo around your head, and she awoke in terror and told Sister
Lisabetta, who let it out. The devil put it into her dream, to tempt
her, Sister Lisabetta says, for she was always too fond of you. She
fasted three days and one heard her groaning in the night--she was as
white as paper. Oh, Maria, to feel it at one's breast, tugging there!
I think I am going mad. Never write again, for I shall never read it,
nor know if it is born._"
Truly God permits strange things. And yet celibacy is as old as
civilisation, and the Will to Live has denied itself since first It
was conscious. It cannot be pished and pshawed away, by you or me or
another.
"... _I will get this to the baker's daughter, and then when I am sure
it is gone, I will confess it all, and whatever penance Reverend
Mother puts upon me, I shall be only glad. It may be I shall be cut
off from Our Blessed Lord longer than I can bear, and then I shall
die, but I think I shall be forgiven finally, for something tells me
so, and until I gave you the letter, that day near the fountain, I
cannot think of any very great sin, can you, Maria? We were always
good, we three. But now I am alone, for they will never let Dolores
back. She grew so thin--my heart ached for her._
"_Adieu, adieu--I have tried to hate you, as I ought, but your grey
eyes look and look at me in the night, and I feel you tapping my
fingers as you used to do--oh, if they will let me I will pray for you
every day till I die, and Our Lady will remember that you were always
good until he looked at you!_
"_For the last time--_
"_Your Josephine._"
Under this letter was hidden a crude little sketch of the cloister-end
of some building on a sheet of drawing-paper, and near it, just
outside a high wall, a fair outline of a thick cypress. There was
nothing else in the box.
Nor did we ever learn another word or syllable of the life of those
two in their lonely cottage. Whether Prynne built it himself or hired
labourers for the work we never tried to discover. That he buried
himself there with the passion of his lonely life, that these flaming
lovers, cast off by God and the world, thought both well lost for what
they found in each other, who can doubt? The love she inspired in him
I can understand, for I have known her daughter; the love he woke in
her, she being what she was, I do not dare to guess. What must that
woman's soul have been? What storm of love must have swept her from
her cloister-harbour--and on to what rocks, over what eternal depths!
Deal gently with her, Church of her betrayal! Forgive her sins, I beg
you, for she loved much.