Self control Part 31

One only desire lingered on earth. She wished that some friend should pity her hard fate, and know that the victim had shrunk from it, though in vain. Intending to leave behind her some attestation of her innocence, she besought Mary to procure for her the means of writing.

'Why should you fear to trust me?' said she. 'To whom upon earth can my complaint reach now? You may see all I write, Mary; and perhaps when I am gone you will yourself convey it to my friend. Your master will not prevent you then; for then he will have pity on me, and wish that he had not dealt with me so hardly.' The irresistible sweetness of Laura had won the heart of her attendant, and Mary promised that she would endeavour to gratify her. She said that the writing materials were kept carefully locked up by Robert, the man-servant; that his master's orders on that subject had been peremptory; that she was sure he would not venture to disobey while there remained a possibility of conveying intelligence from the place of their confinement; that two of the Indians were to depart on the following day; that after they were gone, no means of access to the habitable world remaining, Robert might possibly relax his strictness, and permit Laura to amuse herself with writing. Mary's words awakened in Laura's mind an idea that all was not yet lost. The Indians were suspected of favouring her. They might then bear her appeal to human pity, to human justice. If she could find means to speak with them apart, she would plead so earnestly that even savages would be moved to mercy! At these thoughts a ray of hope once more kindled in her breast. It was the last. All day she watched for an opportunity to address one of the Indians. In vain! Robert guarded her with such relentless fidelity, that she found it impossible to effect her purpose. The Indians departed. Mary performed her promise, and the unfortunate Laura wrote the following letter, which was afterwards, with Hargrave's permission, conveyed to Mrs Douglas.

'From this dreary land of exile, to whom shall I address myself save to you, mine own friend, and my father's friend? Where tell my sad fate save to you, who first taught me the hope that lives beyond it? And let it comfort your kind heart to know, that while you are shedding tears over this last memorial of your Laura, I shall be rejoicing in the full consummation of that hope.

'There is indeed another friend! One to whom my last earthly thoughts are due! But I cannot tell him, that she who was almost the wife of his bosom is gone down to a dishonoured grave. I have not time to soften my sad tale to him, nor to study words of comfort; for the moments are precious with me now. A few, a very few, are all that remain for preparation. I must not rob them of their awful right. Tell him my story as he is able to bear it. Tell him my innocence, and he will believe it, for he knew my very soul. But I must hasten, lest the destroyer come, ere, in these lines, I close my connection with this world of trial.'

[She then proceeded to give a simple narrative of her wrongs.

She expressed no bitterness against the author of them. She spoke of him as a misguided being, and pitied the anguish which he was preparing for himself.] 'Tell Mr De Courcy,' she proceeded, 'that I charge him, by all the love he bears me, to forgive my enemy, even from the heart forgive him. Let him do more. Let him pray for him; and if they meet, admonish him. It may be that his heart will soften when he remembers me.'

[The remainder of the letter was written at intervals. Laura spent her time chiefly in acts of devotion, of self-examination, and repentance. It was only when exhausted nature could no longer follow these exercises of the soul, that she returned to add another line to her picture of wretchedness.]

'The saints who resisted unto blood striving against sin, who gave up their lives in defence of the truth, looked forward to the hour of their departure rejoicing. But I must go to the grave laden with shame and sorrow. My soul is weary of my life, and yet I must fear to die. Yet let my enemy a little while delay his coming and my death also will be joyful. Let him stay only a few days, and I shall be deaf to the voice of the oppressor. I am wasting fast away. If he haste not to catch the shadow, it will be gone.--

'The people whom he has appointed to guard his poor prisoner, no longer watch me as they once did. It is useless now. A few short steps and my feeble limbs bend to the earth, reminding me whither I am hastening.--

'When I am gone, Mary will carry you the ringlets which you were wont to twine round your finger. Send one of them to her who should have been my sister; but give not any to my own Montague, for he will pine over them when he might be happy in some new connection. Yet tell him that I loved him to the end.

I believe he sometimes doubted of my love; but tell him that I bore him a firm affection. Pa.s.sion is unfit for the things of this world.--

'I have a letter from my enemy. In two days more.--

'I have a knife concealed in my bosom. All night it is hidden beneath my pillow; and when my weary eyes close for a moment, I grasp it, and the chill touch rouses me again. Mine own dear friend, did you think when first you taught me to join my little hands in prayer, that these hands should be stained with murder?--

'Is it a crime to die when I can no longer live with innocence?

When there is no escape but in the grave, is it forbidden to hide me there? My mind grows feeble now. I cannot discern between good and evil.--

'Why is my soul bowed down to the dust, as if the fountain of compa.s.sion were sealed? I will yet trust Him who is the helper of those who have no help in man. It may be that he will melt the heart of my enemy, and move him to let me die in peace. Or perhaps even the sight of my persecutor may be permitted to burst the rending heart--to scare the trembling spirit from its prison.--

'This day is my last, and it is closing now! The silence of midnight is around me. Ere it again return a deeper night shall close for me, and the weary pilgrim shall sink to rest. It is time that I loosen me from the earth; I will not give my last hours to this land of shadows. Then fare you well, mine own dear friend! You first pointed my wishes to that better world where I shall not long wait your coming. And far thee well, mine own Montague! Take comfort. I was not fit to linger here; for I had desires that earth could not satisfy; and thirstings after a perfection which this weak heart could not attain.

Farewell--I will look back no more.'

HARGRAVE'S LETTER TO LAURA.

'My dearest Laura--The tantalizing business which has so long thwarted my wishes will still detain me for two days. Your gentle mind cannot imagine what this delay costs me. My only recompense is, that it affords me an opportunity of shewing you somewhat of that consideration with which I could always wish to treat you. I willingly forego the advantage of surprise for the sake of allowing you to exercise that decision which you are so well qualified to use discreetly. You know Laura how I have doated on you. For near four long years you have been the desire of my soul; and now that my happy daring has placed me within reach of my utmost wishes, I would fain attain them without distress to you. This is no time for concealment; and you must pardon me if I am explicit with you. I have known the disposition of Lady Pelham's fortune from the hour when it was made. You know that with all my faults I am not sordid; but circ.u.mstances have rendered money necessary to me. Except in the event of Lord Lincourt's death, I cannot return to England otherwise than as your husband. I will own, too, dearest Laura, that after all I have done, and all that I may be compelled to do, I dare not trust for pardon to your pity alone. I must interest your duty in my cause. Consider your situation, then, my beloved, and spare me the pain of distressing you. I have watched you, implored you, pined for you--I have borne your coldness, your scorn. I have ventured my life to obtain you.

Judge whether I be of a temper to be baulked of my reward. You must be mine, bewitching Laura. No cool, insulting, plausible pretender can cheat me of you now. Trackless woods divide you from all human kind. I have provided against the possibility of tracing your retreat. It rests with you then to choose whether you will bless my love with a willing and honourable reward, or force me to extort the power of bestowing obligation. My charming Laura, for now indeed I may call you mine, pardon, in consideration of its sincerity, the abrupt language I am compelled to hold.--One thing more. In three weeks I must return hither. The engagement of your British attendants expires before that time. I cannot for a moment allow myself to suppose that you will prefer a hopeless solitary exile to the reparation which I shall even then be so anxious to make; to the endearments of a fond husband, of an impa.s.sioned lover; to the envy and the homage of an admiring world. Suffer me rather, dear lovely girl, to exult in the hope that you will receive, without reluctance, the man to whom fate a.s.signs you, and that you will recal somewhat of the tenderness you once confessed for your own ever-devoted,

'VILLIERS HARGRAVE.'

LAURA'S ANSWER (sent with the foregoing to Mrs Douglas:)

'I thought my spirit had been broken, crushed never more to rise. Must the glow of indignation mingle with the damps of death? But I will not upbraid you. The language of forgiveness best befits me now. The measure of your injuries to me is almost full; while those which you have heaped upon yourself are yet more deep and irreparable. My blasted fame, my life cut off in its prime, even the horrible dread that has overwhelmed me, are nothing to the pangs of hopeless remorse, the unaccepted struggle for repentance.--Yet a little while, and this darkness shall burst into light ineffable. Yet a little while, and this sorrow shall be as the remembrance of a troubled dream. But you--Oh Hargrave, have pity on yourself!

'It was not to warn, it was to plead with you, that I won on my knees the consent of your messenger to bear my reply. I will strive to hope; for you were not always pitiless. I have seen you feel for the sufferings of a stranger, and have you no mercy for me? Alas! in those pitying tears I saw you shed, began this long train of evil; for then began my base idolatry, and justly have you been made the instrument of my punishment.

'My mind wanders. I am weaker than a child. Oh Hargrave, if you have human pity let the feeble spark expire in peace. Here, where no Christian footstep shall hallow the turf that covers me, nor song of Christian praise rise near my grave, here let me lay me down and die--and I will bless you that I die in peace. I dare not spend my parting breath in uttering unholy vows, nor die a voluntary partner in your crimes. Nor would I, had my life been prolonged, have joined to pollution this dust, which, perishable as it is, must rise to immortality--which, vile as it is, more vile as it soon may be, shall yet "put on incorruption." Why then should you come hither? Will it please you to see this poor piece of clay, for which you have ventured your soul, faded to an object of horror?--cast uncoffined into the earth, robbed of the decencies which Christians pay even to the worst of sinners? When you look upon my stiffened corpse will you then triumph in the security of your possession? Will you again exult in hope when you turn from my grave and say, "here lies the wretch whom I have undone!"

'Come not I charge you, if you would escape the anguish of the murderer. When did the evil of your deeds stop within your first intention? Do not amuse your conscience with the dream of reparation. I am fallen indeed, ere you dare insult me with the thought! Will you wed the dead? Or could I outlive your injuries, think you that I would sink so low as to repay them with myself?--reward with vows of love a crime more black than murder! Though my name, already degraded through you, must no more claim alliance with the good and worthy, think you that I would bind myself before heaven to a wretch who owed his very life to my undeserved mercy? Inhuman! Your insults have roused the failing spirit. Yet I must quell these last stirrings of nature. Instant, full, and free must be my forgiveness; for such is the forgiveness which I shall soon require.

'Perhaps, as now you seem to think me fit for any baseness, you will suppose my forebodings a poor deceit to win you from your purpose. See then if you can trace in these unsteady lines the vigour of health. Ask him who bears them to you, how looks now the face which you call lovely? Ask him if the hand which gave this letter looks soft and graceful now? I love to gaze upon it. It bids me hope, for it is like no living thing. Inquire minutely. Ask if there remains one charm to lure you on to farther guilt. And if death has already seized on all, if he has spared nothing to desire, will you yet hurry him on his prey? You have made life a burden too heavy for the weary frame. Will you make death too dreadful to be endured? Will you add to its horrors till nature and religion shrink from it in agony.

'I cannot plead with you as I would. My strength fails. My eyes are dim with weeping. Oh grant that this farewell may be the last--that we may meet no more till I welcome you with the joy which angels feel over the sinner that repenteth.'

The whole of the night preceding Hargrave's arrival, was pa.s.sed by Laura in acts of devotion. In her life, blameless as it had appeared to others, she saw so much ground for condemnation, that, had her hopes rested upon her own merit, they would have vanished like the sunshine of a winter storm. Their support was more mighty; and they remained unshaken. The raptures of faith beamed on her soul. By degrees they triumphed over every fear; and the first sound that awoke the morning, was her voice raised in a trembling hymn of praise.

Her countenance elevated as in hope; her eyes cast upwards; her hands clasped; her lips half open in the unfinished adoration; her face brightened with a smile, the dawn of eternal day--she was found by her attendant. Awe-struck, the woman paused, and at a reverend distance gazed upon the seraph; but her entrance had called back the unwilling spirit from its flight; and Laura, once more a feeble child of earth, faintly inquired whether her enemy were at hand. Mary answered that her master was not expected to arrive before the evening; and entreated that Laura would try to recruit her spirits, and accept of some refreshment.

Laura made no opposition. She unconsciously swallowed what was placed before her; unwittingly suffered her attendant to lead her abroad; nor once heeded ought that was done to her, nor ought that pa.s.sed before her eyes, till her exhausted limbs found rest upon the trunk of a tree, which lay mouldering near the spot where its root was sending forth a luxuriant thicket.

The breath of morning blew chill on the wasted form of Laura, while it somewhat revived her to strength and recollection. Her attendant seeing her shiver in the breeze, compa.s.sionately wrapped her more closely in her cloak, and ran to seek a warmer covering. 'She feels for my bodily wants,' said Laura. 'Will she have no pity for the sufferings of the soul? Yet what relief can she afford: What help is there for me in man?

Oh be Thou my help who art the guard of the defenceless! Thou who canst shield in every danger--Thou who canst guide in every difficulty!'

Her eye rested as it fell, upon a track as of recent footsteps. They had brushed away the dew, and the rank gra.s.s had not yet risen from their pressure. The unwonted trace of man's presence arrested her attention; and her mind, exhausted by suffering, and sharing the weakness of its frail abode, admitted the superst.i.tious thought that these marks afforded a providential indication for her guidance. Transient animation kindling in her frame, she followed the track as it wound round a thicket of poplar; then, suddenly recollecting herself, she became conscious of the delusion, and shed a tear over her mental decay.

She was about to return, when she perceived that she was near the bank of the river. Its dark flood was stealing noiseless by, and Laura, looking on it, breathed the oft repeated wish that she could seek rest beneath its waves. Again she moved feebly forward. She reached the brink of the stream, and stood unconsciously following its course with her eye; when a light wind stirring the canes that grew down to the water edge, she beheld close by her an Indian canoe. With suddenness that mocks the speed of light, hope flashed on the darkened soul; and, stretching her arms in wild ecstasy, 'Help, help,' cried Laura, and sprung towards the boat. A feeble echo from the further sh.o.r.e alone returned the cry. Again she called. No human voice replied. But delirious transport lent vigour to her frame. She sprung into the bark; she pressed the slender oar against the bank. The light vessel yielded to her touch. It floated. The stream bore it along. The woods closed around her prison. 'Thou hast delivered me!' she cried; and sunk senseless.

A meridian sun beat on her uncovered head ere Laura began to revive.

Recollection stole upon her like the remembrance of a feverish dream. As one who, waking from a fearful vision, still trembles in his joy, she scarcely dared to hope that the dread hour was past, till raising her eyes she saw the dark woods bend over her, and steal slowly away as the canoe glided on with the tide. The raptures of fallen man own their alliance with pain, by seeking the same expression. Joy and grat.i.tude too big for utterance long poured themselves forth in tears. At length returning composure permitting the language of extasy, it was breathed in the accents of devotion; and the lone wild echoed to a song of deliverance.

The saintly strain rose unmixed with other sound. No breeze moaned through the impervious woods. No ripple broke the stream. The dark shadows trembled for a moment in its bosom as the little bark stole by, and then reposed again. No trace appeared of human presence. The fox peeping from the brushwood, the wild duck sailing stately in the stream, saw the unwonted stranger without alarm, untaught as yet to flee from the destroyer.

The day declined; and Laura, with the joy of her escape, began to mingle a wish, that, ere the darkness closed around her, she might find shelter near her fellow beings. She was not ignorant of the dangers of her voyage. She knew that the navigation of the river was interrupted by rapids. A cataract which broke its course had been purposely described in her hearing. She examined her frail vessel and trembled; for life was again become precious, and feeble seemed her defence against the torrent. The canoe, which could not have contained more than two persons, was constructed of a slender frame of wood, covered with the bark of the birch. It yielded to the slightest motion, and caution was necessary to poise in it even the light form of Laura.

Slowly it floated down the lingering tide; and, when a pine of larger size or form more fantastic than his fellows enabled her to measure her progress, she thought that through wilds less impa.s.sible her own limbs would have borne her more swiftly. In vain behind each tangled point did her fancy picture the haunt of man. Vainly amid the mists of eve did she trace the smoke of sheltered cottages. In vain at every winding of the stream she sent forward a longing eye in search of human dwelling. The narrow view was bounded by the dark wilderness, repeating ever the same picture of dreary repose.

The sun went down. The shadows of evening fell; not such as in her happy native land blend softly with the last radiance of day; but black and heavy, harshly contrasting with the light of a naked sky reflected from the waters, where they spread beyond the gloom of impending woods.

Dark, and more dark the night came on. Solemn even amid the peopled land, in this vast solitude it became more awful. Ignorant how near the place of danger might be, fearing to pursue darkling her perilous way, Laura tried to steer her light bark to the sh.o.r.e, intending to moor it, to find in it a rude resting place, and in the morning to pursue her way. Laboriously she toiled, and at length reached the bank in safety; but in vain she tried to draw her little vessel to land. Its weight resisted her strength. Dreading that it should slip from her grasp and leave her without means of escape, she re-entered it, and again glided on in her dismal voyage. She had found in the canoe a little coa.r.s.e bread made of Indian corn; and this, with the water of the river, formed her whole sustenance. Her frame worn out with previous suffering, awe and fear at last yielded to fatigue; and the weary wanderer sunk to sleep.

It was late on the morning of a cloudy day, when a low murmuring sound stealing on the silence awoke Laura from the rest of innocence. She listened. The murmur seemed to swell on her ear. She looked up. The dark woods still bent over her. But they no longer touched the margin of the stream. They stretched their giant arms from the summit of a precipice.

Their image was no more reflected unbroken. The gray rocks which supported them but half lent their colours to the rippling water. The wild duck, no longer tempting the stream, flew screaming over its bed.

Each object hastened on with fearful rapidity, and the murmuring sound was now a deafening roar.

Fear supplying super-human strength, Laura strove to turn the course of her vessel. She strained every nerve; she used the force of desperation.

Half-hoping that the struggle might save her, half-fearing to note her dreadful progress, she toiled on till the oar was torn from her powerless grasp, and hurried along with the tide.

The fear of death alone had not the power to overwhelm the soul of Laura. Somewhat might yet be done perhaps to avert her fate, at least to prepare for it. Feeble as was the chance of life, it was not to be rejected. Fixing her cloak more firmly about her, Laura bound it to the slender frame of the canoe. Then commending herself to heaven with the fervour of a last prayer, she, in dread stillness, awaited her doom.

With terrible speed the vessel hurried on. It was whirled round by the torrent--tossed fearfully--and hurried on again. It shot over a smoothness more dreadful than the eddying whirl. It rose upon its prow.

Laura clung to it in the convulsion of terror. A moment she trembled on the giddy verge. The next, all was darkness!

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

When Laura was restored to recollection, she found herself in a plain decent apartment. Several persons of her own s.e.x were humanely busied in attending her. Her mind retaining a confused remembrance of the past, she inquired where she was, and how she had been brought thither. An elderly woman, of a prepossessing appearance, answered with almost maternal kindness, 'that she was among friends all anxious for her safety; begged that she would try to sleep; and promised to satisfy her curiosity when she should be more able to converse.' This benevolent person, whose name was Falkland, then administered a restorative to her patient; and Laura, uttering almost incoherent expressions of grat.i.tude, composed herself to rest.

Awakening refreshed and collected, she found Mrs Falkland and one of her daughters still watching by her bed-side. Laura again repeated her questions, and Mrs Falkland fulfilled her promise, by relating that her husband, who was a farmer, having been employed with his two sons in a field which overlooked the river, had observed the canoe approach the fall; that seeing it too late to prevent the accident, they had hurried down to the bed of the stream below the cataract, in hopes of intercepting the boat at its reappearance: That being accustomed to float wood down the torrent, they knew precisely the spot where their a.s.sistance was most likely to prove effectual: That the canoe, though covered with foam for a moment, had instantly risen again, and that Mr Falkland and his sons had, not without danger, succeeded in drawing it to land. She then, in her turn, inquired by what accident Laura had been exposed to such a perilous adventure; expressing her wonder at the direction of her voyage, since Falkland farm was the last inhabited spot in that district. Laura, mingling her natural reserve with a desire to satisfy her kind hostess, answered, that she had been torn from her friends by an inhuman enemy, and that her perilous voyage was the least effect of his barbarity. 'Do you know,' said Mrs Falkland, somewhat mistaking her meaning, 'that to his cruelty you partly owe your life; for had he not bound you to the canoe, you must have sunk while the boat floated on.' Laura heard with a faint smile the effect of her self-possession; but considering it as a call to pious grat.i.tude rather than a theme of self-applause, she forbore to offer any claim to praise; and suffered the subject to drop without further explanation.