Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860

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We were sitting in a window, facing each other. He looked out toward
the west, and presently was lost in thought. He folded his arms tightly
across his breast, and his eyes were a hundred miles away. The sound of
a fiddle in the long alley which led from the house to the tower broke
his reverie.

"We shall be uproarious before we leave," I said; "we always are, when
we come here."

The fun had already set in. Some of the girls had pinned up their
dresses, and borrowed aprons from the light-house keeper's wife, and
with scorched faces were helping her to make chowder and fry
fish. Others were arranging the table, assisted by the young men, who
put the dishes in the wrong places. Others were singing in the best
room. One or two had brought novels along, and were reading them in
corners. It was all merry and pleasant, but I felt quiet. Redmond
entered into the spirit of the scene. I had never seen him so gay. He
chatted with all the girls, interfering or helping, as the case might
be. Maurice brought his guitar, and had a group about him at the foot
of the tower-stairs. He sung loud, but his voice seemed to
fluctuate;--now it rang through the tower, now it was half overpowered
by the roar of the sea. His poetical temperament led him to choose
songs in harmony with the place, not to suit the company,--melancholy
words set to wild, fitful chords, which rose and died away according to
the skill of the player. I had gone near him, for his singing had
attracted me.

"You are inspired," I said.

He nodded.

"You never sung so before."

"I feel old to-day," he answered, and he swept his hands across all the
strings; "my ditties are done."

After dinner Laura asked me to go out with her. We slipped away unseen,
and went to the beach, and seated ourselves on a great rock whose outer
side was lapped by the water. The sun had broken through the clouds,
but shone luridly, giving the sea a leaden tint. The wind was going
down. We had not been there long, when Redmond joined us. He asked us
to go round the island in his boat. Laura declined, and said she would
sit on the rock while we went, if I chose to go. I did choose to go,
and he brought the boat to the rock. He hoisted the sail half up the
mast, and we sailed close to the shore. It rose gradually along the
east side of the island, and terminated in a bold ledge which curved
into the sea. We ran inside the curve, where the water was nearly
smooth. Redmond lowered the sail and the boat drifted toward the ledge
slowly. A tongue of land, covered with pale sedge, was on the left
side. Above the ledge, at the right, we could see the tower of the
light-house. Redmond tied down the helm, and, throwing himself beside
me, leaned his head on his hand, and looked at me a long time without
speaking. I listened to the water, which plashed faintly against the
bows. He covered his face with his hands. I looked out seaward over the
tongue of land; my heart quaked, like the grass which grew upon it. At
last he rose, and I saw that he was crying,--the tears rained fast.

"My soul is dying," he said, in a stifled voice; "I am not more than
mortal,--I cannot endure it."

I pointed toward the open sea, which loomed so vague in the distance.

"The future is like that,--is it not? Courage! we must drift through
it; we shall find something."

He stamped his foot on the deck.

"Women always talk so; but men are different. If there is a veil before
us, we must tear it away,--not sit muffled in its folds, and speculate
on what is behind it. Rise."

I obeyed him. He held me firmly. We were face to face.

"Look at me."

I did. His eyes were blazing.

"Do you love me?"

"No."

He placed me on the bench, hoisted the sail, untied the helm, and we
were soon ploughing round to the spot where we had left Laura; but she
was gone. On the rock where she was, perched a solitary gull, which
flew away with a scream as we approached.

That day was the last that I saw Redmond alone. He was at the party at
Laura's house which took place the night before they left. We did not
bid each other adieu.

After the three friends had gone, they sent us gifts of remembrance.
Redmond's keepsake was a white fan with forget-me-nots painted on it.
To Laura he sent the pen-holder, which was now mine.

We missed them, and should have felt their loss, had no deep feeling
been involved; for they gave an impetus to our dull country life, and
the whole summer had been one of excitement and pleasure. We settled by
degrees into our old habits. At Christmas, Frank came. He looked
worried and older. He had heard something of Laura's intimacy with
Harry Lothrop, and was troubled about it, I know: but I believe Laura
was silent on the matter. She was quiet and affectionate toward him
during his visit, and he went back consoled.

The winter passed. Spring came and went, and we were deep into the
summer when Laura was taken ill. She had had a little cough, which no
one except her mother noticed. Her spirits fell, and she failed fast.
When I saw her last, she had been ill some weeks, and had never felt
strong enough to talk as much as she did in that interview. She nerved
herself to make the effort, and as she bade me farewell, bade farewell
to life also. And now it was all over with her!

* * * * *

I fell asleep at length, and woke late. It seemed as if a year had
dropped out of the procession of Time. My heart was still beating with
the emotion which stirred it when Redmond and I were together last.
Recollection had stung me to the quick. A terrible longing urged me to
go and find him. The feeling I had when we were in the boat, face to
face, thrilled my fibres again. I saw his gleaming eyes; I could have
rushed through the air to meet him. But, alas! exaltation of feeling
lasts only a moment; it drops us where it finds us. If it were not so,
how easy to be a hero! The dull reaction of the present, like a slow
avalanche, crushed and ground me into nothingness.

"Something must happen at last," I thought, "to amuse me, and make time
endurable."

What can a woman do, when she knows that an epoch of feeling is rounded
off, finished, dead? Go back to her story-books, her dress-making, her
worsted-work? Shall she attempt to rise to mediocrity on the piano or
in drawing, distribute tracts, become secretary of a Dorcas society? or
shall she turn her mind to the matter of cultivating another lover at
once? Few of us women have courage enough to shoulder out the corpses
of what men leave in our hearts. We keep them there, and conceal the
ruins in which they lie. We grow cunning and artful in our tricks, the
longer we practise them. But how we palpitate and shrink and shudder,
when we are alone in the dark!

After Redmond departed, I had locked up my feelings and thrown the key
away. The death of Laura, and the awakening of my recollections, caused
by the appearance of Harry Lothrop, wrenched the door open. Hitherto I
had acted with the bravery of a girl; I must now behave with the
resolution of a woman. I looked into my heart closely. No skeleton was
there, but the image of a living man,--_Redmond_.

"I love him," I confessed. "To be his wife and the mother of his
children is the only lot I ever care to choose. He is noble, handsome,
and loyal. But I cannot belong to him, nor can he ever be mine.

"'Of love that never found his earthly close
What sequel?'

"What did he do with the remembrance of me? He scattered it, perhaps,
with the ashes of the first cigar he smoked after he went from
me,--made a mound of it, maybe, in honor of Duty. I am as ignorant of
him as if he no longer existed; so this image must be torn away. I will
not burn the lamp of life before it, but will build up the niche where
it stands into a solid wall."

The ideal happiness of love is so sweet and powerful, that, for a
while, adverse influences only exalt the imagination. When Laura told
me of Redmond's engagement, it did but change my dream of what might be
into what might have been. It was a mirage which continued while he was
present and faded with his departure. Then my heart was locked in the
depths of will, till circumstance brought it a power of revenge. I
think now, if we had spoken freely and truly to each other, I should
have suffered less when I saw his friend. We feel better when the
funeral of our dearest friend is over and we have returned to the
house. There is to be no more preparation, no waiting; the windows may
be opened, and the doors set wide; the very dreariness and desolation
force our attention towards the living.

"Something will come," I thought; and I determined not to have any more
reveries. "Mr. Harry Lothrop is a pleasant riddle; I shall see him
soon, or he will write."

It occurred to me then that I had some letters of his already in my
possession,--those he had written to Laura. I found the ebony box, and,
taking from it the sealed package, unfolded the letters one by one,
reading them according to their dates. There was a note among them for
me, from Laura.

"When you read these letters, Margaret," it said, "you will see that I
must have studied the writer of them in vain. You know now that he made
me unhappy; not that I was in love with him much, but he stirred depths
of feeling which I had no knowledge of, and which between Frank, my
betrothed husband, and myself had no existence. But '_le roi s'amuse._'
Perhaps a strong passion will master this man; but I shall never know.
Will you?"

I laid the letters back in their place, and felt no very strong desire
to learn anything more of the writer. I did not know then how little
trouble it would be,--my share of making the acquaintance.

It was not many weeks before Mr. Lothrop came again, and rather
ostentatiously, so that everybody knew of his visit to me. But he saw
none of the friends he had made during his stay the year before. I
happened to see him coming, and went to the door to meet him. Almost
his first words were,--

"Maurice is dead. He went to Florida,--took the fever,--which killed
him, of course. He died only a week after--after Laura. Poor fellow!
did he interest you much? I believe he was in love with you, too; but
musical people are never desperate, except when they play a false
note."

"Yes," I answered; "I was fond of him. His conceit did not trouble me,
and he never fatigued me; he had nothing to conceal. He was a
commonplace man; one liked him, when with him,--and when away, one had
no thought about him."

"I alone am left you," said my visitor, putting his hat on a chair, and
slowly pulling off his gloves, finger by finger.

He had slender, white hands, like a woman's, and they were always in
motion. After he had thrown his gloves into his hat, he put his finger
against his cheek, leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair, crossed
his legs, and looked at me with a cunning self-possession. I glanced at
his feet; they were small and well-booted. I looked into his face; it
was not a handsome one; but he had magnetic eyes, of a lightish blue,
and a clever, loose mouth. It is impossible to describe him,--just as
impossible as it is for a man who was born a boor to attain the bearing
of a gentleman; any attempt at it would prove a bungling matter, when
compared with the original. He felt my scrutiny, and knew, too, that I
had never looked at him till then.

"Do you sing nowadays?" he asked, tapping with his fingers the keys of
the piano behind him.

"Psalms."

"They suit you admirably; but I perceive you attend to your dress
still. How effective those velvet bands are! You look older than you
did two years ago."

"Two years are enough to age a woman."

"Yes, if she is miserable. Can you be unhappy?" he asked, rising, and
taking a seat beside me.

There was a tone of sympathy in his voice which made me shudder, I knew
not why. It was neither aversion nor liking; but I dreaded to be thrown
into any tumult of feeling. I realized afterward more fully that it is
next to impossible for a passionate woman to receive the sincere
addresses of a manly man without feeling some fluctuation of soul.
Ignorant spectators call her a coquette for this. Happily, there are
teachers among our own sex, women of cold temperaments, able to
vindicate themselves from the imputation. They spare themselves great
waste of heart and some generous emotion,--also remorse and
self-accusations regarding the want of propriety, and the other
ingredients which go to make up a white-muslin heroine.

Harry Lothrop saw that my cheek was burning, and made a movement toward
me. I tossed my head back, and moved down the sofa; he did not follow
me, but smiled and mused in his old way.

And so it went on,--not once, but many times. He wrote me quiet,
persuasive, eloquent letters. By degrees I learned his own history and
that of his family, his prospects and his intentions. He was rich. I
knew well what position I should have, if I were his wife. My beauty
would be splendidly set. I was well enough off, but not rich enough to
harmonize all things according to my taste. I was proud, and he was
refined; if we were married, what better promise of delicacy could be
given than that of pride in a woman, refinement in a man? He brought me
flowers or books, when he came. The flowers were not delicate and
inodorous, but magnificent and deep-scented; and the material of the
books was stalwart and vigorous. I read his favorite authors with him.
He was the first person who ever made any appeal to my intellect. In
short, he was educating me for a purpose.

Once he offered me a diamond cross. I refused it, and he never asked me
to accept any gift again. His visits were not frequent, and they were
short. However great the distance he accomplished to reach me, he staid
only an evening, and then returned. He came and went at night. In time
I grew to look upon our connection as an established thing. He made me
understand that he loved me, and that he only waited for me to return
it; but he did not say so.

I lived an idle life, inhaling the perfume of the flowers he gave me,
devouring old literature, the taste for which he had created, and
reading and answering his letters. To be sure, other duties were
fulfilled, I was an affectionate child to my parents, and a proper
acquaintance for my friends. I never lost any sleep now, nor was I
troubled with dreams. I lived in the outward; all my restless activity,
that constant questioning of the heavens and the earth, had ceased
entirely. Five years had passed since I first saw Redmond. I was now
twenty-four. The Fates grew tired of the monotony of my life, I
suppose, for about this time it changed.

My oldest brother, a bachelor, lived in New York. He asked me to spend
the winter with him; he lived in a quiet hotel, had a suite of rooms,
and could make me comfortable, he said. He had just asked somebody to
marry him, and that somebody wished to make my acquaintance. I was glad
to go. My heart gave a bound at the prospect of change; I was still
young enough to dream of the impossible, when any chance offered itself
to my imagination; so I accepted my brother's invitation with some
elation.

I had been in New York a month. One day I was out with my future
sister, on a shopping raid; with our hands full of little paper
parcels, we stopped to look into Goupil's window. There was always a
rim of crowd there, so I paid no attention to the jostles we received.
We were looking at an engraving of Ary Scheffer's Francoise de Rimini.
"Not the worst hell," muttered a voice behind me, which I knew. I
started, and pulled Leonora's arm; she turned round, and the fringe of
her cloak-sleeve caught a button on the overcoat of one of the
gentlemen standing together. It was Redmond; the other was his
"ancient," Harry Lothrop. Leonora was arrested; I stood still, of
course. Redmond had not seen my face, for I turned it from him; and his
head was bent down to the task of disengaging his button.

"'Each only as God wills
Can work; God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first,'"

I thought, and turned my head. He instinctively took off his hat, and
then planted it back on his head firmly, and looked over to Harry
Lothrop, to whom I gave my hand. He knew me before I saw him, I am
convinced; but his dramatic sense kept him silent,--perhaps a deeper
feeling. There was an expression of pain in his face, which impelled me
to take his arm.

"Let us move on, Leonora," I said; "these are some summer friends of
mine," and I introduced them to her.

My chief feeling was embarrassment, which was shared by all the party;
for Leonora felt that there was something unusual in the meeting. The
door of the hotel seemed to come round at last, and as we were going
in, Harry Lothrop asked me if he might see me the next morning.

"Do come," I answered aloud.

We all bowed, and they disappeared.

"What an elegant Indian your tall friend is!" said Leonora.

"Yes,--of the Camanche tribe."

"But he would look better hanging from his horse's mane than he does in
a long coat."

"He is spoiled by civilization and white parents. But, Leonora, stay
and dine with me, in my own room. John will not come home till it is
time for the opera. You know we are going. You must make me splendid;
you can torture me into style, I know."

She consented, provided I would send a note to her mother, explaining
that it was my invitation, and not her old John's, as she irreverently
called him. I did so, and she was delighted to stay.

"This is fast," she said; "can't we have Champagne and black coffee?"

She fell to rummaging John's closets, and brought out a dusty,
Chinese-looking affair, which she put on for a dressing-gown. She found
some Chinese straw shoes, and tucked her little feet into them, and
then braided her hair in a long tail, and declared she was ready for
dinner. Her gayety was refreshing, and I did not wonder at John's
admiration. My spirits rose, too, and I astonished Leonora at the table
with my chat; she had never seen me except when quiet. I fell into one
of those unselfish, unasking moods which are the glory of youth: I felt
that the pure heaven of love was in the depths of my being; my soul
shone like a star in its atmosphere; my heart throbbed, and I cried
softly to it,--"Live! live! he is here!" I still chatted with Leonora
and made her laugh, and the child for the first time thoroughly liked
me. We were finishing our dessert, when we heard John's knock. We
allowed him to come in for a moment, and gave him some almonds, which,
he leisurely cracked and ate.

"Somehow, Margaret," he said, "you remind me of those women who enjoy
the Indian festival of the funeral pile. I have seen the thing done;
you have something of the sort in your mind; be sure to immolate
yourself handsomely. Women are the deuse."

"Finish your almonds, John," I said, "and go away; we must dress."

He put his hand on my arm, and whispered,--

"Smother that light in your eyes, my girl; it is dangerous. And you
have lived under your mother's eye all your life! You see what I have
done,"--indicating Leonora with his eyebrows,--"taken a baby on my
hands."

"John, John!" I inwardly ejaculated, "you are an idiot."

"She shall never suffer what you suffer; she shall have the benefit of
the experience which other women have given me."

"Very likely," I answered; "I know we often serve you as pioneers
merely."

He gave a sad nod, and I closed the door upon him.

"Put these pins into my hair, Leonora, and tell me, how do you like my
new dress?"

"Paris!" she cried.

It was a dove-colored silk with a black velvet stripe through it. I
showed her a shawl which John had given me,--a pale-yellow gauzy fabric
with a gold-thread border,--and told her to make me up. She produced
quite a marvellous effect; for this baby understood the art of dress to
perfection. She made my hair into a loose mass, rolling it away from my
face; yet it was firmly fastened. Then she shook out the shawl, and
wrapped me in it, so that my head seemed to be emerging from a
pale-tinted cloud. John said I looked outlandish, but Leonora thought
otherwise. She begged him for some Indian perfume, and he found an
aromatic powder, which she sprinkled inside my gloves and over my shawl.

We found the opera-house crowded. Our seats were near the stage. John
sat behind us, so that he might slip out into the lobby occasionally;
for the opera was a bore to him. The second act was over; John had left
his seat; I was opening and shutting my fan mechanically, half lost in
thought, when Leonora, who had been looking at the house with her
lorgnette, turned and said,--

"Is not that your friend of this morning, on the other side, in the
second row, leaning against the third pillar? There is a
queenish-looking old lady with him. He hasn't spoken to her for a long
time, and she continually looks up at him."

I took her glass, and discovered Redmond. He looked back at me through
another; I made a slight motion with my handkerchief; he dropped his
glass into the lap of the lady next him and darted out, and in a moment
he was behind me in John's seat.

"Who is with you?" he asked.

"Brother," I answered.

"You intoxicate me with some strange perfume; don't fan it this way."

I quietly passed the fan to Leonora, who now looked back and spoke to
him. He talked with her a moment, and then she discreetly resumed her
lorgnette.

"What happened for two years after I left B.? The last year I know
something of."

"Breakfast, dinner, and tea; the ebb and flow of the tide; and the days
of the week."

"Nothing more?" And his voice came nearer.

"A few trifles."

"They are under lock and key, I suppose?"

"We do not carry relics about with us."

"There is the conductor; I must go. Turn your face toward me more."

I obeyed him, and our eyes met. His searching gaze made me shiver.

"I have been married," he said, and his eyes were unflinching, "and my
wife is dead."

All the lights went down, I thought; I struck out my arm to find
Leonora, who caught it and pressed it down.

"I must get out," I said; and I walked up the alley to the door without
stumbling.

I knew that I was fainting or dying; as I had never fainted, I did not
know which. Redmond carried me through the cloak-room and put me on a
sofa.

"I never can speak to him again," I thought, and then I lost sight of
them all.

A terribly sharp pain through my heart roused me, and I was in a
violent chill. They had thrown water over my face; my hair was matted,
and the water was dripping from it on my naked shoulders. The gloves
had been ripped from my hands, and Leonora was wringing my
handkerchief.

"The heat made you faint, dear," she said.

John was walking up and down the room with a phlegmatic countenance,
but he was fuming.

"My new dress is ruined, John," I said.

"Hang the dress! How do you feel now?"

"It is drowned; and I feel better; shall we go home?"

He went out to order the carriage, and Leonora whispered to me that she
had forgotten Redmond's name.

"No matter," I answered. I could not have spoken it then.

When John came, Leonora beckoned to Redmond to introduce himself. John
shook hands with him, gave him an intent look, and told us the carriage
was ready. Redmond followed us, and took leave of us at the
carriage-door.

Leonora begged me to stay at her house; I refused, for I wished to be
alone. John deposited her with her mother, and we drove home. He gave
me one of his infallible medicines, and told me not to get up in the
morning. But when morning came, I remembered Harry Lothrop was coming,
and made myself ready for him. As human nature is not quite perfect, I
felt unhappy about him, and rather fond of him, and thought he
possessed some admirable qualities. I never could read the old poets
any more without a pang, unless he were with me, directing my eye along
their pages with his long white finger! I never should smell tuberoses
again without feeling faint, unless they were his gift!

By the time he came I was in a state of romantic regret, and in that
state many a woman has answered, "Yes!" He asked me abruptly if I
thought it would be folly in him to ask me to marry him. The question
turned the tide.

"No," I answered,--"not folly; for I have thought many times in the
last two years, that I should marry you, if you said I must. But now I
believe that it is not best. You have pursued me patiently; your
self-love made the conquest of me a necessary pleasure. That was well
enough for me; for you made me feel all the while, that, if I loved
you, you were worth possessing. And you are. I like you. But my feeling
for you did not prevent my fainting away at the opera-house last night,
when Redmond told me that his wife was dead."

"So," he said, "the long-smothered fire has broken out again! Chance
does not befriend me. He saw you last night, and yielded. He said
yesterday he should not tell you. He asked me about you after we left
you, and wished to know if I had seen you much for the last year. I
offered him your last letter to read,--am I not generous?--but he
refused it.

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