Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village Part 45

She felt, though she did not say:--

"Even as I am, overthrown, robbed of my treasure, I feel that I am superior to these. I feel that I have strength against the future. If they are pure and innocent, it is not because of their greater strength, but their greater obscurity. If I am overthrown by the tempter, it was because I was the more worthy object of overthrow. In their littleness they live: if I am doomed to the shaft, at least it will be as the eagle is doomed; it will be while soaring aloft--while aiming for the sun--while grasping at the very bolt by which I am destroyed!"

Such was the consolation offered by the twin-demons of pride and vanity.

The latter finds its aliment in the heart which it too completely occupies, even from those circ.u.mstances which, in other eyes, make its disgrace and weakness. The sermon which had touched her sin had not subdued it. Perhaps no sermon, no appeal, however powerful and touching, could at that moment have had power over her. The paroxysm of her first consciousness of ruin had not yet pa.s.sed off. The condition of mind was not yet reached in which an appeal could be felt.

As in the case of physical disease, so with that of the mind and heart, there is a period when it is neither useful nor prudent to administer the medicines which are yet most necessary to safety. The judicious physician will wait for the moment when the frame is prepared--when the pulse is somewhat subdued--before he tries the most powerful remedy. The excitement of the wrong which she had suffered was still great in her bosom. It was necessary that she should have repose. That excitement was maintained by the expectation that Stevens would yet make his appearance. Her eye, at intervals, wandered over the a.s.sembly in search of him. The demon at her elbow understood her quest.

"He will not come," it said; "you look in vain. The girls follow your eyes; they behold your disappointment; they laugh at your credulity.

If he leads any to the altar, think you it will be one whom he could command at pleasure without any such conditions--one who, in her wild pa.s.sions and disordered vanity, could so readily yield to his desires, without demanding any corresponding sacrifices? Margaret, they laugh now at those weaknesses of a mind which they once feared if not honored.

They wonder, now, that they could have been so deceived. If they do not laugh aloud, Margaret, it is because they would spare your shame.

Indeed, indeed, they pity you!"

The head of the desperate, but still haughty woman, was now more proudly uplifted, and her eyes shot forth yet fiercer fires of indignation.

What a conflict was going on in her bosom. Her cheeks glowed with the strife--her breast heaved; with difficulty she maintained her seat inflexibly, and continued, without other signs of discomposure, until the service was concluded. Her step was more stately than ever as she walked from church; and while her mother lingered behind to talk with Brother Cross, and to exchange the sweetest speeches with the widow Thackeray and others, she went on alone--seeing none, heeding none--dreading to meet any face lest it should wear a smile and look the language in which the demon at her side still dealt. HE still clung to her, with the tenacity of a fiendish purpose. He mocked her with her shame, goading her, with dart upon dart, of every sort of mockery. Truly did he mutter in her ears:--

"Stevens has abandoned you. Never was child, before yourself, so silly as to believe such a promise as he made you. Do you doubt?--do you still hope? It is madness? Why came he not yesterday--last night--to-day? He is gone. He has abandoned you. You are not only alone--you are lost!

lost for ever!"

The tidings of this unsolicited attendant were confirmed the next day, by the unsuspecting John Cross. He came to visit Mrs. Cooper and her daughter among the first of his parishioners. He had gathered from the villagers already that Stevens had certainly favored Miss Cooper beyond all the rest of the village damsels. Indeed, it was now generally bruited that he was engaged to her in marriage. Though the worthy preacher had very stoutly resisted the suggestions of Mr. Calvert, and the story of Ned Hinkley, he was yet a little annoyed by them; and he fancied that, if Stevens were, indeed, engaged to Margaret, she, or perhaps the old lady, might relieve his anxiety by accounting for the absence of his protege. The notion of Brother John was, that, having resolved to marry the maiden, he had naturally gone home to apprize his parents and to make the necessary preparations.

But this conjecture brought with it a new anxiety. It, now, for the first time, seemed something strange that Stevens had never declared to himself, or to anybody else who his parents were--what they were--where they were--what business they pursued; or anything about them. Of his friends, they knew as little. The simple old man had never thought of these things, until the propriety of such inquiries was forced upon him by the conviction that they would now be made in vain. The inability to answer them, when it was necessary that an answer should be found, was a commentary upon his imprudence which startled the good old man not a little. But, in the confident hope that a solution of the difficulty could be afforded by the sweetheart or the mother, he proceeded to her cottage. Of course, Calvert, in his communication to him, had forborne those darker conjectures which he could not help but entertain; and his simple auditor, unconscious himself of any thought of evil, had never himself formed any such suspicions.

Margaret Cooper was in her chamber when Brother Cross arrived. She had lost that elasticity of temper which would have carried her out at that period among the hills in long rambles, led by those wild, wooing companions, which gambol along the paths of poetic contemplation. The old man opened his stores of scandal to Mrs. Cooper with little or no hesitation. He told her all that Calvert had said, all that Ned Hinkley had fancied himself to have heard, and all the village tattle touching the engagement supposed to exist between Stevens and her daughter.

"Of course, Sister Cooper," said he, "I believe nothing of this sort against the youth. I should be sorry to think it of one whom I plucked as a brand from the burning. I hold Brother Stevens to be a wise young man and a pious; and truly I fear, as indeed I learn, that there is in the mind of Ned Hinkley a bitter dislike to the youth, because of some quarrel which Brother Stevens is said to have had with William Hinkley.

This dislike hath made him conceive evil things of Brother Stevens and to misunderstand and to pervert some conversation which he hath overheard which Stevens hath had with his companion. Truly, indeed, I think that Alfred Stevens is a worthy youth of whom we shall hear a good account."

"And I think so too, Brother Cross. Brother Stevens will be yet a burning and a shining light in the church. There is a malice against him; and I think I know the cause, Brother Cross."

"Ah! this will be a light unto our footsteps, Sister Cooper."

"Thou knowest, Brother Cross," resumed the old lady in a subdued tone but with a loftier elevation of eyebrows and head--"thou knowest the great beauty of my daughter Margaret?"

"The maiden is comely, sister, comely among the maidens; but beauty is gra.s.s. It is a flower which blooms at morning and is cut down in the evening. It withereth on the stalk where it bloomed, until men turn from it with sickening and with sorrow, remembering what it hath been. Be not boastful of thy daughter's beauty, Sister Cooper, it is the beauty of goodness alone which dieth not."

"But said I not, Brother Cross, of her wisdom, and her wit, as well as her beauty?" replied the old lady with some little pique. "I was forgetful of much, if I spoke only of the beauty of person which Margaret Cooper surely possesseth, and which the eyes of blindness itself might see."

"Dross, dross all, Sister Cooper. The wit of man is a flash which blindeth and maketh dark; and the wisdom of man is a vain thing. The one crackleth like thorns beneath the pot--the other stifleth the heart and keepeth down the soul from her true flight. I count the wit and wisdom of thy daughter even as I count her beauty. She hath all, I think--as they are known to and regarded by men. But all is nothing. Beauty hath a day's life like the b.u.t.terfly; wit shineth like the sudden flash of the lightning, leaving only the cloud behind it; and oh! for the vain wisdom of man which makes him vain and unsteady--likely to falter--liable to fall--rash in his judgment--erring in his aims--blind to his duty--wilful in his weakness--insolent to his fellow--presumptuous in the sight of G.o.d. Talk not to me of worldly wisdom. It is the foe to prayer and meekness. The very fruit of the tree which brought sin and death into the world. Thy daughter is fair to behold--very fair among the maidens of our flock--none fairer, none so fair: G.o.d hath otherwise blessed her with a bright mind and a quick intelligence; but I think not that she is wise to salvation. No, no! she hath not yearned to the holy places of the tabernacle, unless it be that Brother Stevens hath been more blessed in his ministry than I!"

"And he hath!" exclaimed the mother. "I tell you, Brother John, the heart of Margaret Cooper is no longer what it was. It is softened. The toils of Brother Stevens have not been in vain. Blessed young man, no wonder they hate and defame him. He hath had a power over Margaret Cooper such as man never had before; and it is for this reason that Bill Hinkley and Ned conspired against him, first to take his life, and then to speak evil of his deeds. They beheld the beauty of my daughter, and they looked on her with famishing eyes. She sent them a-packing, I tell you. But this youth, Brother Stevens, found favor in her heart. They beheld the two as they went forth together. Ah! Brother John, it is the sweetest sight to behold two young, loving people walk forth in amity--born, as it would seem, for each other; both so tall, and young, and handsome; walking together with such smiles, as if there was no sorrow in the world; as if there was nothing but flowers and sweetness on the path; as if they could see nothing but one another; and as if there were no enemies looking on. It did my heart good to see them, Brother Cross; they always looked so happy with one another."

"And you think, Sister Cooper, that Brother Stevens hath agreed to take Margaret to wife?"

"She hath not told me this yet, but in truth, I think it hath very nigh come to that."

"Where is she?"

"In her chamber."

"Call her hither, Sister Cooper; let us ask of her the truth."

Margaret Cooper was summoned, and descended with slow steps and an unwilling spirit to meet their visiter.

"Daughter," said the good old man, taking her hand, and leading her to a seat, "thou art, even as thy mother sayest, one of exceeding beauty. Few damsels have ever met mine eyes with a beauty like to thine. No wonder the young men look on thee with eyes of love; but let not the love of youth betray thee. The love of G.o.d is the only love that is precious to the heart of wisdom."

Thus saying, the old man gazed on her with as much admiration as was consistent with the natural coldness of his temperament, his years, and his profession. His address, so different from usual, had a soothing effect upon her. A sigh escaped her, but she said nothing. He then proceeded to renew the history which had been given to him and which he had already detailed to her mother. She heard him with patience, in spite of all his interpolations from Scripture, his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, his running commentary upon the narrative, and the numerous suggestive topics which took him from episode to episode, until the story seemed interminably mixed up in the digression.

But when he came to that portion which related to the adventure of Ned Hinkley, to his espionage, the conference of Stevens with his companion--then she started--then her breathing became suspended, then quickened--then again suspended--and then, so rapid in its rush, that her emotion became almost too much for her powers of suppression.

But she did suppress it, with a power, a resolution, not often paralleled among men--still more seldom among women. After the first spasmodic acknowledgment given by her surprise, she listened with comparative calmness. She, alone, had the key to that conversation. She, alone, knew its terrible signification. She knew that Ned Hinkley was honest--was to be believed--that he was too simple, and too sincere, for any such invention; and, sitting with hands clasped upon that chair--the only att.i.tude which expressed the intense emotion which she felt--she gazed with unembarra.s.sed eye upon the face of the speaker, while every word which he spoke went like some keen, death-giving instrument into her heart.

The whole dreadful history of the villany of Stevens, her irreparable ruin--was now clearly intelligible. The mocking devil at her elbow had spoken nothing but the truth. She was indeed the poor victim of a crafty villain. In the day of her strength and glory she had fallen--fallen, fallen, fallen!

"Why am I called to hear this?" she demanded with singular composure.

The old man and the mother explained in the same breath--that she might reveal the degree of intercourse which had taken place between them, and, if possible, account for the absence of her lover. That, in short, she might refute the malice of enemies and establish the falsehood of their suggestions.

"You wish to know if I believe this story of Ned Hinkley?"

"Even so, my daughter."

"Then, I do!"

"Ha! what is it you say, Margaret?"

"The truth."

"What?" demanded the preacher, "you can not surely mean that Brother Stevens hath been a wolf in sheep's clothing--that he hath been a hypocrite."

"Alas!" thought Margaret Cooper--"have I not been my own worst enemy--did I not know him to be this from the first?"

Her secret reflection remained, however, unspoken. She answered the demand of John Cross without a moment's hesitation.

"I believe that Alfred Stevens is all that he is charged to be--a hypocrite--a wolf in sheep's clothing!--I see no reason to doubt the story of Ned Hinkley. He is an honest youth."

The old lady was in consternation. The preacher aghast and confounded.

"Tell me, Margaret," said the former, "hath he not engaged himself to you? Did he not promise--is he not sworn to be your husband?"

"I have already given you my belief. I see no reason to say anything more. What more do you need? Is he not gone--fled--has he not failed--"

She paused abruptly, while a purple flush went over her face. She rose to retire.

"Margaret!" exclaimed the mother.

"My daughter!" said John Cross.

"Speak out what you know--tell us all--"