Confession

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Confession

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"I leave you, Edgerton, with one regret--not that we part, for life
is full of partings, and the strong mind must be reconciled with
them, or it is nothing--but that I leave you so unlike your former
self. I wish I could do something for you."

I gave him my hand as as I spoke. He did not grasp--he rather
shrunk from it. An uncontrollable burst of feeling seemed suddenly
to gush from him as he spoke:--

"Take no heed of me, Clifford--I am not worthy of YOUR thought."

"Ha! What do you mean?"

He spoke hastily, in manifest discomfiture:--

"I am worthy of no man's thought."

"Pshaw! you are a hypochondriac."

"Would it were that!--But you go!--when?"

"In a week, perhaps."

"So soon? So very soon? Do you--do you carry your family with you
at once?"

There was great effort to speak this significant inquiry. I perceived
that. I perceived that his eyes were on the ground while it was
made. The question was offensive to me. It had a strange and painful
significance. It recalled the whole cause, the bitter cause of my
resolve for exile; and I could not control the altered tones of
my voice in answering, which I did with some causticity of feeling,
which necessarily entered into my utterance.

"Family, surely! My wife only! No great charge, I'm thinking, and
her health needs an early change. Would you have me leave HER? I
have no other family, you know!"

The dialogue, carried on with restraint before, was shortened by
this; and, after a few business remarks, which were necessary to
our office concerns, he pleaded an engagement to get away. He left
me with some soreness upon my mind, which formed its expression in
a brief soliloquy.

"You would have the path made even freer than before, would you?
It does not content you, these long morning meditations--these
pretended labors of the painting-room, the suspicious husband
withdrawn, and the wife, neither scorning nor consenting, willing
to believe in that devotion to the art which is properly a devotion
to herself? These are not sufficient opportunities, eh? There
were--more room for landscape, appoint you, Mr. Edgerton!--Ah!
could I but know all. Could I be sure that she did love him! Could
I be sure that she did not! That is the curse--that doubt!--Will
it remain so? No! no! Once removed--once in those forest regions,
it can not be that she will repine for anything. She MUST love me
then--she will feel anew the first fond passion. She will forget
these passing fancies. They WILL pass! She is young. The image
will haunt her no longer--at least, it will no longer haunt me!"

So I spoke, but I was not so sure of that last. The doubt did not
trouble me, however. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
But I had another test yet to try. I wished to see how Julia would
receive the communication of my purpose. As yet she knew nothing
of my contemplated departure. "It will surprise her," I thought to
myself. "In that surprise she will show how much our removal will
distress her!"

But when I made known to her my intention, the surprise was all
my own. The communication did not seemed to distress her at all.
Surprise her it did, but the surprise seemed a pleasant one. It
spoke out in a sudden flashing of the eye, a gentle smiling of the
mouth, which was equally unexpected and grate ful to my heart.

"I am delighted with the idea!" she exclaimed, putting her arms
about my neck. "I think we shall be so happy there. I long to get
away from this place."

"Indeed! But are you serious?"

"To be sure."

"I was apprehensive it might distress you."

"Oh! no! no! I have been dull and tired here, for a long while; and
I thought, when you told me that Mr. Kingsley had gone to Alabama,
how delightful it would be if we could go too."

"But you never told me that."

"No."

"Nor even looked it, Julia."

"Surely not--I should have been loath to have you think, while
your business was so prosperous, and you seemed so well satisfied
here, that I had any discontent."

"I satisfied!" I said this rather to myself than her.

"Yes, were you not? I had no reason to think otherwise. Nay, I
feared you were too well satisfied, for I have seen so little of
you of late. I'm sure I wished we were anywhere, so that you could
find your home more to your liking."

"And have such notions really filled your brain Julia?"

"Really."

"And you have found me a stranger--you have missed me?"

"Ah! do you not know it, Edward?"

"You shall have no need to reproach me hereafter. We will go
to Alabama, and live wholly for one another. I shall leave you in
business time only, and hurry back as soon as I can"

"Ah, promise me that?"

"I do!"

"We shall be so happy then. Then we shall take our old rambles,
Edward, though in new regions, and will resume the pencil, if you
wish it."

This was said timidly.

"To be sure I wish it. But why do you say, 'resume'? Have you not
been painting all along?"

"No! I have scarcely smeared canvass the last two months"

"But you have been sketching?"

"No!"

"What employed you then in the studio? How have you passed your
mornings?"

This inquiry was made abruptly, but it did not disturb her. Her
answer was strangely satisfactory.

"I have scarcely looked in upon the studio in all that time."

I longed to ask what Edgerton had done with himself, and whether he
had been suffered to employ himself alone, in his morning visits,
but my tongue faltered--I somehow dared not. Still, it was something
to have her assurance that she had not found her attractions in
that apartment in which my jealous fancy had assumed that she took
particular delight. She had spoken with the calmness of innocence,
and I was too happy to believe her. I put my arms about her waist.

"Yes, we will renew the old habits, for I suppose that business
there will be less pressing, less exacting, than I have found it
here. We will take our long walks, Julia, and make up for lost time
in new sketches. You have thought me a truant, Julia--neglectful
hitherto! Have you not?"

"Ah, Edward!"--Her eyes filled with tears, but a smile, like rainbow,
made them bright.

"Say, did you not?"

"Do not be angry with me if I confess I thought you very much
altered in some respects. I was fearful I had vexed you."

"You shall have no more reason to fear. We shall be the babes
in the wood together. I am sure we shall be quite happy, left to
ourselves. No doubts, no fears--nothing but love. And you are really
willing to go?"

"Willing! I wish it! I can get ready in a day."

"You have but a week. But, have you no reluctance? Is there nothing
that you regret to leave? Speak freely, Julia. Your mother, your
friends--would you not prefer to remain with them?"

She placed her hands on my shoulders, laid her head close to my bosom
and murmured--how softly, how sweetly--in the touching language of
the Scripture damsel.

"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to refrain from following after
thee; for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest,
I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!"

I folded her with tremulous but deep joy in my embrace; and in that
sweet moment of peace, I wondered that I ever should have questioned
the faith of such a woman.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"AND STILL THE BITTER IN THE CUP OF JOY."

Once more I had sunshine. The clouds seemed to depart as suddenly
as they had risen, and that same rejoicing and rosy light which had
encircled the brow of manhood at its dawn long shrouded, seemingly
lost for ever, and swallowed up in darkness--came out as softly
and quietly in the maturer day, as if its sweet serene had never
known even momentary obscuration.

Love, verily, is the purple light of youth. If it abides, blessing
and blessed, with the unsophisticated heart, youth never leaves
us. Gray brows make not age--the feeble step, the wrinkled visage,
these indicate the progress of time, but not the passage of youth.
Happy hearts keep us in perpetual spring, and the glow of childhood
without its weaknesses is ours to the final limit of seventy. The
sense of desolation, the pang of denial, the baffled hope, and the
defrauded love, these constitute the only age that should ever give
the heart a pang. I can fancy a good man advancing through all the
mortal stages from seventeen to seventy-five, and crowned by the
sympathies of corresponsive affections, simply going on from youth
to youth, ending at last in youth's perfect immortality!

The hope of this--not so much a hope as an instinct--is the faith
of our boyhood. The boy, as the father of the man, transmits this
hope to riper years; but if the experience of the day correspond
not with the promise of the dawn, how rapidly old age comes upon
us! White hairs, lean cheeks, withered muscles, feeble steps, and
that dull, dead feeling about the heart--that utter abandonment
of cheer--which would be despair were it not for a certain blunted
sensibility--a sort of drowsy indifference to all things that the
day brings forth, which, as it takes from life the excitement of
every passion, leaves it free from the sting of any. Yet, were not
the tempest better than the calm? Who would not prefer to be driven
before the treacherous hurricane of the blue gulf, than to linger
midway on its shoreless waters, and behold their growing stagnation
from day to day? The apathy of the passions is the most terrible
form in which age makes its approaches.

With an earnest, sanguine temperament, such as mine, there is
little danger of such apathy, The danger is not from lethargy but
madness. I had escaped this danger. It was surprising, even to
myself, how suddenly my spirits had arisen from the pressure that
had kept them down. In a moment, as it were, that mocking troop
of fears and sorrows which environed me, took their departure. It
seemed that it was only necessary for me to know that I was about
to lose the presence of William Edgerton to find this relief.

And yet, how idle! With an intense egoisme, such as mine, I should
conjure up an Edgerton in the deepest valleys of our country.
We have our gods and devils in our own hearts. The nature of the
deities we worship depends upon our own. In a savage state, the
Deity is savage, and expects bloody sacrifices; with the progress
of civilization his attributes incline to mercy. The advent of Jesus
Christ indicated the advance of the Hebrews to a higher sense of
the human nature. It was the advent of the popular principle, which
has been advancing steadily ever since and keeping due pace with
the progress of Christian education. The people were rising at the
expense of the despotism which had kept them down. It does not affect
the truth of this to show that the polish of the Jewish nation was
lessened at this period. Nay, rather proves it, since the diffusion
of a truth or a power must always lessen its intensity In teaching,
for the first time, the doctrine of the soul's immortality, the
Savior laid the foundation of popular rights, in the elevation of
the common humanity--since he thus showed the equal importance, in
the sight of God, of every soul that had ever taken shape beneath
his hands.

The demon which had vexed and tortured me was a demon of my own
soliciting--of my own creation. But, I knew not this. I congratulated
myself on escaping from him. Blind fancy!--I little knew the insidious
pertinacity of this demon--this demon of the blind heart. I little
knew the nature of his existence, and how much he drew his nutriment
from the recesses of my own nature. He could spare, or seem to
spare, the victim of whom he was so sure; and by a sort of levity,
in no ways unaccountable, since we see it in the play of cat with
mouse, could indulge with temporary liberty, the poor captive of
whom he was at any moment certain. I congratulated myself on my
escape; but I was not so well pleased with the congratulations of
others. I was doomed to endure those of my exemplary mother-in-law,
Mrs. Delaney. That woman had her devil--a worse devil, though not
more troublesome, I think, than mine. She said to me, when she
heard of my purpose of removal: "You are right to remove. It is
only prudent. Pity you had not gone some months ago."

I read her meaning, where her language was ambiguous, in her sharp,
leering eyes--full of significance--an expression of mysterious
intelligence, which, mingled with a slight, sinister smile
upon her lips, for a moment, brought a renewal of all my tortures
and suspicions. She saw the annoyance which I felt, and strove to
increase it. I know not--I will not repeat--the occasional innuendos
which she allowed herself to utter in the brief space of a twenty
minutes' interview. It is enough to say that nothing could be more
evident than her desire to vex me with the worst pangs which a man
can know, even though her success in the attempt was to be attained
at the expense of her daughter's peace of mind and reputation. I
do not believe that she ever hinted to another, what she clearly
enough insinuated as a cause of fear to me. Her purpose was to
goad me to madness, and in her witless malice, I do believe she
was utterly unconscious of the evil that might accrue to the child
of her own womb from her base and cruel suggestions. I wished to
get from her these suggestions in a more distinct form. I wished
at the same time, to deprive her of the pleasure of seeing that I
understood her. I restrained myself accordingly, though the vulture
was then again at my vitals.

"What do you mean. Mrs. Delaney? Why is it a pity that I hadn't
gone months ago?"

"Oh! that's enough for me to know. I have my reasons."

"But, will you not suffer me to know them? I am conscious of no
evil that has arisen from my not going sooner."

"Indeed! Well, if you are not, I can only say you're not so
keen-sighted a lawyer as I thought you were. That's all."

"If you think I would have made out better, got more practice, and
made more money in Alabama, that, I must tell you, has been long
since my own opinion."

"No! I don't mean that--it has no regard to business and
money-making--what I mean."

"Ah! what can it have regard to? You make me curious, Mrs. Delaney."

"Well, that may be; but I'm not going to satisfy your curiosity.
I thought you had seen enough for yourself. I'm sure you're the
only one that has not seen."

"Upon my soul, Mrs. Delaney, you are quite a mystery."

"Oh! am I?"

"I can't dive into such depths. I'm ignorant."

"Tell those that know you no better. But you can't blind me. I
know that you know--and more than that, I can guess what's carrying
you to Alabama. It's not law business, I know that."

I was vexed enough, as may be supposed, at this malicious pertinacity,
but I kept down my struggling gorge with a resolution which I had
been compelled often enough to exercise before; and quietly ended
the interview by taking my hat and departure, as I said:--

"You are certainly a very sagacious lady, Mrs. Delaney; but
I must leave you, and wait your own time to make these mysterious
revelations. My respects to Mr. Delaney. Good morning."

"Oh, good morning; but let me tell you, Mr. Clifford, if you don't
see, it's not because you can't. Other people can see without
trying."

The Jezabel!

My preparations were soon completed. I worked with the spirit of
enthusiasm--I had so many motives to be active; and, subordinate
among these, but still important, I should get out of the reach
of this very woman. I could not beat her myself but I wished her
husband might do it, and not to anticipate my own story, he did
so in less than three months after. He was the man too, to perform
such a labor with unction and emphasis. A vigorous man with muscles
like bolt-ropes, and limbs that would have been respectable in the
days of Goliah. I met him on leaving the steps of Mrs. Delaney's
lodgings, and--thinking of the marital office I wished him to
perform--I was rejoiced to discover that he was generously drunk--in
the proper spirit for such deeds in the flesh.

He seized my hand with quite a burst of enthusiasm, swore I was a
likely fellow, and somehow he had a liking for me.

"Though, to be sure, my dear fellow, it's not Mrs. Delaney that
loves any bone in your skin. She's a lady that, like most of the
dear creatures, has a way of her own for thinking. She does her own
thinking, and what can a woman know about such a business. It's
to please her that I sit by and say nothing; and a wife must be
permitted some indulgence while the moon lasts, which the poets
tell us, is made out of honey: but it's never a long moon in these
days, and a small cloud soon puts an end to it. Wait till that
time, Mr. Clifford, and I'll put her into a way of thinking, that'll
please you and myself much better."

I thanked him for his good opinion, and civilly wished him--as it
was a matter which seemed to promise him so much satisfaction--that
the duration of the honeymoon should be as short as possible. He
thanked me affectionately--grasped my hand with the squeeze of a
blacksmith, and entreated that I should go back and take a drink of
punch with him. As an earnest of what he could give me, he pulled a
handful of lemons from his pocket which he had bought from a shop
by the way. I need not say I expressed my gratitude, though I
declined his invitation. I then told him I was about to remove to
Alabama, and he immediately proposed to go along with me. I reminded
him that he was just married, and it would be expected of him that
he would see the honeymoon out.

"Ah, faith!" he replied, "and there's sense in what you say; it
must be done, I suppose; but devil a bit, to my thinking, does any
moon last a month in this climate; and the first cloudy weather,
d'ye see, and I'm after you."

It was difficult to escape from the generous embraces of my ardent
father-in-law; and the whole street witnessed them.

That afternoon I spent in part with the Edgertons. I went soon after
my own dinner and found the family at theirs. William Edgerton
was present. The old man insisted that I should take a seat at
the table and join them in a bottle of wine, which I did. It was
a family, bearing apparently all the elements within itself of a
happiness the most perfect and profound. Particularly an amiable
family. Yet there was no insipidity. The father has already been
made known; the son should be by this time; the mother was one of
those strong-minded, simple women, whose mind may be expressed by
its most striking characteristic--independence. She had that most
obvious trait of aristocratic breeding, a quiet, indefinable,
easy dignity--a seemingly natural quality, easy itself, that puts
everybody at ease, and yet neither in itself nor in others suffered
the slightest approach to be made to unbecoming familiarity. A
sensible, gentlewoman--literally gentle--yet so calm, so firm, you
would have supposed she had never known one emotion calculated to
stir the sweet, glass-like placidity of her deportment.

And yet, amidst all this calm placidity, with an eye looking
benevolence, and a considerateness that took note of your smallest
want, she sustained the pangs of one yearning for her firstborn;
dissatisfied and disappointed in his career, and apprehensive for
his fate. The family was no longer happy. The worm was busy in all
their hearts. They treated me kindly, but it was obvious that they
were suffering. A visible constraint chilled and baffled conversation;
and I could see the deepening anxieties which clouded the face of
the mother, whenever her eye wandered in the direction of her son.
This it did, in spite, I am convinced, of her endeavors to prevent
it.

I, too, could now look in the same quarter. My feelings were less
bitter than they were, and William Edgerton shared in the change.
I did not the less believe him to have done wrong, but, in the
renewed conviction of my wife's purity, I could forgive him, and
almost think he was sufficiently punished in entertaining affections
which were without hope. Punished he was, whether by hopelessness
or guilt, and punished terribly. I could see a difference for the
worse in his appearance since I had last conferred with him. He was
haggard and spiritless to the last degree. He had few words while
we sat at table, and these were spoken only after great effort;
and, regarding him now with less temper than before, it seemed to
me that his parents had not exaggerated the estimate which they
had formed of his miserable appearance. He looked very much like
one, who had abandoned himself to nightly dissipation, and those
excesses of mind and body, which sap from both the saving and
elevating substance. I did not wonder that the old man ascribed
his condition to the bottle and the gaming-table. But that I knew
better, such would most probably have been my own conclusion.

The conversation was not general--confined chiefly to Mr. Edgerton
the elder and myself. Mrs. Edgerton remained awhile after the
cloth had been withdrawn, joining occasionally in what was said,
and finally left us, though with still a lingering, and a last look
toward her son, which clearly told where her heart was. William
Edgerton followed her, after a brief interval, and I saw no more
of him, though I remained for more than an hour. He had said but
little. It was with some evident effort, that he had succeeded in
uttering some general observation on the subject of the Alabama
prairies--those beautiful "gardens of the desert,"

"For which the speech of England has no name."

My removal had been the leading topic of our discourse, and when
I declared my intention to start on the very next day, and that
the present was a farewell visit, the emotion of the son visibly
increased. Soon after he left the room. When I was alone with the
father, he took occasion to renew his offer of service, and, in
such a manner, as to take from the offer its tone of service. He
seemed rather to ask a favor than to suggest one. Money he could
spare--the repayment should be at my own leisure--and my bond would
be preferable, he was pleased to say, to that of any one he knew.
I thanked him with becoming feelings, though, for the present,
I declined his assistance. I pledged myself, however, should
circumstances make it necessary for me to seek a loan, to turn, in
the first instance, to him. He had been emphatically my friend--THE
friend, sole, singular--never fluctuating in his regards, and never
stopping to calculate the exact measure of my deserts. I felt that
I could not too much forbear in reference to the son, having in
view the generous friendship of the father.

That day, and the night which followed it, was a long period with
me. I had to see many acquaintances, and attend to a thousand small
matters. I was on my feet the whole day, and even when the night
came I had no rest. I was in the city till near eleven o'clock. When
I got home I found that my wife had done her share of the tasks.
She had completed her preparations. Our luggage was all ready for
removal. To her I had assigned the labor of packing up her pictures,
her materials for painting, her clothes, and such other matters as
she desired to carry with us, to our new place of abode. The rest
was to be sold by a friend after our departure, and the proceeds
remitted. I knew I should need them all. Most of our baggage
was to be sent by water. We travelled in a private carriage, and
consequently, could take little. Julia, unlike most women, was
willing to believe with me that impediments are the true name for
much luggage; and, with a most unfeminine habit, she could limit
herself without reluctance to the merest necessities. We had no
bandboxes, baskets, or extra bundles, to be stuffed here and there,
filling holes and corners, and crowding every space, which should
be yielded entirely to the limbs of the traveller. Though sensitive
and delicate in a great degree, she had yet that masculine sense
which teaches that, in the fewness of our wants lies our truest
source of independence; and she could make herself ready for taking
stage or steamboat in quite as short a time as myself.

Her day's work had exhausted her. She retired, and when I went up
to the chamber, she already seemed to sleep. I could not. Fatigue,
which had produced exhaustion, had baffled sleep. Extreme
weariness becomes too much like a pain to yield readily to repose.
The moment that exercise benumbs the frame, makes the limbs ache,
the difficulty increases of securing slumber. I felt weary, but
I was restless also. I felt that it would be vain for me to go to
bed. Accordingly, I placed myself beside the window, and looked
out meditatingly upon the broad lake which lay before our dwelling.

The night was very calm and beautiful. The waters from the lake were
falling. Tide was going out, and the murmuring clack of a distant
sawmill added a strange sweetness to the hour, and mingled
harmoniously with the mysterious goings on of midnight. The starlight,
not brilliant, was yet very soft and touching. Isolated and small
clouds, like dismembered ravens' wings, flitted lightly along
the edge of the western horizon, shooting out at intervals brief,
brilliant flashes of lightning. There was a flickering breeze that
played with the shrubbery beneath my window, making a slight stir
that did not break the quiet of the scene, and gave a graceful
movement to the slender stems as they waved to and fro beneath its
pressure. A noble pride of India [Footnote: China tree: the melia
azedaracha of botanists. A tree peculiar to the south, of singular
beauty, and held in high esteem as a shade-tree.] rose directly
before my eyes to the south--its branches stretching almost from
within touch of the dwelling, over the fence of a neighbor. The
whole scene was fairy-like. I should find it indescribable. It
soothed my feelings. I had been the victim of a long and painful
moral conflict. At length I had a glimmering of repose. Events,
in the last few days--small events which, in themselves denoted
nothing--had yet spoken peace to my feelings. My heart was in that
dreamy state of languor, such as the body enjoys under the gradually
growing power of the anodyne, in which the breath of the summer
wind brings a language of luxury, and the most emperiest sights
and sounds in nature minister to a capacity of enjoyment, which is
not the less intoxicating and sweet because it is subdued. I mused
upon my own heart, upon the heart which I so much loved and had so
much distrusted--upon life, its strange visions, delusive hopes,
and the sweet efficacy of mere shadows in promoting one's happiness
et last. Then came, by natural degrees, the thought of that strange
mysterious union of light and darkness--life and death--the shadows
that we are; the substances that we are yet to be. The future!--still
it rose before me--but the darkness upon it alone showed me it was
there. It did not offend me, however, for my heart was glowing in
a present starlight. It was the hour of hopes rather than of fears;
and in the mere prospect of transition to the new--such is the
elastic nature of youth--I had agreed to forget every pang whether
of idea or fact, which had vexed and tortured me in the perished
past. My musings were all tender yet joyful--they partook of that
"joy of grief" of which the bard of Fingal tells us. I felt a big
tear gathering in my eye, I knew not wherefore. I felt my heart
growing feeble, with the same delight which one would feel at
suddenly recovering a great treasure which had been supposed for
ever lost. I fancied that I had recovered my treasure, and I rose
quietly, went to the bed where Julia lay sleeping peacefully,
and kissed her pale but lovely cheeks. She started, but did not
waken--a gentle sigh escaped her lips, and they murmured with some
indistinct syllables which I failed to distinguish. At that moment
the notes of a flute rose softly from the grove without.

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